IRLF 


EflS    SEfi 


GIFT   OF 


MAKING  THE  GRADE 


MAKING  THE  GRADE 


BY 
C.  V.  MOSBY,  M.D. 

M 


ST.  LOUIS 
THE  HIGHLAND  PRESS 

1917 


-B  <j- 


oat 


Copyright,  1917,  By  The  Highland  Press 


To  Mother  who  Urged 
To  Father  who  Guided 


LilO 


FOREWORD 


Every  individual  has  an  inherent  desire 
to  win.  Ask  the  boy,  the  girl,  the  youth, 
the  maiden,  or  the  middle-aged  what  of  the 
future.  Every  one  will  tell  you  that  he 
expects  to  reach  his  goal,  that  he  expects 
to  sail  into  the  harbor  of  old  age  with 
a  competency  and  with  his  hopes  realized. 
Alas!  however,  the  possibilities  of  this 
achievement  grow  dim  with  the  passing 
years,  and  fully  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the 
world's  populace  reach  the  sear  and  yel- 
low time  of  life  with  the  howl  of  the  wolf 
dangerously  near !  This  human  waste  is  a 
serious  economic  problem.  It  indicates 
that  our  system  is  wrong  somewhere.  Is  it 
in  our  boasted  educational  institutions? 
Are  we  training  wrong  f  Sometimes  I 
think  we  are.  It  would  seem  more  logical 
to  train  a  boy  or  girl  to  know  themselves, 

9 


10  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

to  know  the  great  laws  governing  life,  to 
know  the  principles  upon  which  success  is 
founded,  than  to  take  years  of  time 
familiarizing  one  with  a  language  that  is 
never  used  and  with  mathematical  prob- 
lems that  have  no  bearings  on  life.  I 
would  rather  my  boy  knew  his  biology  and 
became  acquainted  with  his  animal  and 
vegetable  ancestry  than  to  be  able  to  read 
"Caesar's  War  With  the  Gauls,"  in  the 
original  tongue. 

I  would  rather  he  knew  that  courage, 
fidelity,  optimism,  imagination,  patience, 
and  endurance  were  necessary  in  the 
achievement  of  success  than  be  able  to 
solve  some  difficult  problem  in  calculus. 

You  may  say  that  childhood  is  no  time 
for  the  consideration  of  life's  serious 
problems.  Let  me  tell  you  that  the  sug- 
gestions planted  in  childhood  become  the 
serious  problems  of  life,  so  why  not  plant 
in  childhood  the  right  kind.  Making  the 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  11 

grade  is  the  real  problem  for  all.  It 
makes  no  difference  what  your  religion  or 
your  philosophy  may  be,  the  crux  of  every 
life  is  centered  upon  whether  you  have 
been  able  to  climb  the  hill.  Suggestions 
rule  our  lives.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously we  are  influenced  thereby.  If  the 
suggestions  set  forth  in  this  little  volume 
help  some  fellow  traveler  to  climb  the  hill 
and  to  make  the  grade,  then,  like  other  sug- 
gestions, its  life  cycle  will  have  been  com- 
plete. -C.  V.  M. 

Webster  Groves, 
St.  Louis  County, 
Missouri. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 1? 

CHAPTER  II 
HEALTH .     .     24 

CHAPTER  III 
ENDURANCE 32 

CHAPTER  IV 
IMAGINATION 40 

CHAPTER  V 
PATIENCE 47 

CHAPTER  VI 
COURAGE 54 

CHAPTER  VII 
SELF- CONFIDENCE 62 

CHAPTER  VIII 
OPTIMISM 69 

13 


14  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

CHAPTER  IX 

FAITH  IN  THE  SUCCESS  OF  YOUR  UNDERTAKING    76 

CHAPTER  X 
POISE 83 

CHAPTER  XI 

CORRECT  ESTIMATION  OF  VALUES    ....    91 

CHAPTER  XII 
HONESTY  OF  PURPOSE 98 

CHAPTER  XIII 
PLEASURES 106 

CHAPTER  XIV 
KNOWLEDGE *" 112 

CHAPTER  XV 
INDUSTRY      . 120 

CHAPTER  XVI 
CONCENTRATION .  127 

CHAPTER  XVII 
INITIATIVE 133 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
CONCLUSIONS  .  141 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

AN  automobile  that  cannot  climb  a  hill  is 
-**•  worthless.  When  a  horse  balks  every 
time  the  going  gets  hard,  it  is  branded  as 
a  plug  and  loses  its  value.  When  a  man  or 
a  woman  abandons  his  or  her  purpose  in 
life  every  time  difficulties  confront  them, 
they  become  closely  akin  to  the  balky  horse 
or  the  automobile  that  carries  an  inferior 
motor.  A  country  that  stretches  away  on  a 
dead  level  is  very  uninteresting.  It  takes 
the  hills,  the  valleys,  and  the  mountains  to 
give  the  charm  to  a  landscape.  Mountains 
have  always  had  an  attraction  for  man. 
They  have  lured  the  artists,  inspired  the 
poets,  and  charmed  the  dreamer,  and  they 
have  imparted  courage,  manhood,  integ- 
rity, and  resolute  purpose  to  all  who  live 
in  their  shadows. 

17 


18  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

Historians  speak  of  the  hardy  mountain- 
eers of  Switzerland  and  Scotland,  and  in 
these  countries  the  spark  of  liberty  was 
kept  alive  when  tyranny  ruled  in  other 
lands.  Mountains  have  charmed  because 
they  presented  difficulties  to  those  who 
would  enjoy  their  fastness,  and  to  be  really 
happy  one  must  have  difficulties  to  over- 
come. 

When  you  fatten  a  hog,  you  restrict  its 
field  of  activities,  you  take  all  efforts  of 
obtaining  a  living  away  from  it,  you  surfeit 
it  with  food,  and  the  hog  eats  and  dies. 
The  more  it  eats  and  the  fatter  it  becomes, 
the  more  quickly  will  come  its  end.  So  it  is 
with  life.  Take  away  the  difficulties,  level 
the  mountains,  reduce  the  grades,  make 
living  one  unending  monotony,  and  you  are 
dead.  The  men  who  do  things  are  the  hill 
climbers.  They  take  the  grade  on  high 
and  they  go  to  the  top  without  heating  the 
motor.  Anything  in  this  life  that  has  a 
tangible  value  must  be  fought  for.  Com- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  19 

pensation  has  laws  that  never  vary.  When- 
ever you  get  something  for  nothing,  you 
are  paying  the  highest  price  for  it  and  this 
price  is  usually  that  of  self-respect  or  lack 
of  effort. 

When  an  athlete  ceases  to  train,  he  is  on 
the  toboggan  slide  headed  for  oblivion. 
When  men  cease  to  climb,  when  they  strike 
the  dead  level  of  life,  they  begin  to  toll  the 
knell  to  their  own  funeral. 

There  is  no  sadder  spectacle  in  modern 
life  than  that  of  the  man  or  the  woman 
climbing  the  hill  to  the  Goal  of  Success, 
financial  or  otherwise,  in  order  that  their 
sons  or  daughters  may  be  spared  similar 
efforts.  A  ball  rolls  down  hill  much  faster 
than  it  can  be  carried  up,  and  it  strikes  the 
bottom  with  a  thud.  Start  an  untrained, 
unsophisticated  young  man  in  life  with 
plenty  of  money,  a  good  credit,  or  an  estab- 
lished business,  and  ninety-nine  chances 
out  of  the  hundred,  you  put  the  ball  of  his 
life  at  the  top  of  the  grade  and  give  it  a 


20  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

push.  It  is  your  fault,  not  hisf that  it  flies 
through  space  on  its  downward  plunge^and 
hits  the  bottom  with  a  crash. 

To  be  capable  of  climbing  hills  you  must 
prepare  for  it  while  the  machine  is  being 
built.  You  can't  put  weak  material  into  a 
car  and  expect  it  to  stand  the  strain  of  the 
mountain  trail.  You  must  build  every 
piece  of  your  machine  with  an  understand- 
ing of  what  it  will  go  through ;  it  must  be 
tried  and  must  stand  the  acid  test.  So  it 
is  in  life,  you  must  build  for  hill  climbing. 
Very  little  of  life's  journey  lies  along  the 
shaded  brook,  most  of  it  is  over  hills, 
across  deserts,  and  up  rugged  mountain 
sides.  There  would  be  no  glory  in  success 
if  it  were  easy  to  achieve,  and  there  would 
be  no  pleasure  in  achieving  if  it  came  by 
the  mere  asking.  A  life  of  ease  is  a  life  of 
failure.  If  you  would  be  a  success,  climb. 
Travelers  from  all  over  the  world  make 
pilgrimages  to  Switzerland  to  climb  the 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  21 

Alps ;  and  the  more  difficult  the  ascent,  the 
greater  the  pleasure  in  the  climb.  Every 
life  has  its  Alps,  some  more  difficult  than 
others,  but  none  impossible.  We  can  climb 
them  all. 

A  great  injury  is  done  young  men  and 
young  women  today  in  withholding  from 
them  the  necessity  of  preparing  for  moun- 
tain climbing.  When  an  engineer  starts  on 
a  trip  he  must  know  in  advance  something 
about  the  road  he  travels  and  how  much 
fuel  will  be  needed  to  make  the  run.  His 
predecessor  acquaints  him  with  the  curves 
and  with  the  grades  that  must  be  overcome 
and  he  prepares  accordingly.  When  a  bat- 
tle is  fought,  the  wise  commander  charts 
the  ground,  marks  the  hills,  the  valleys, 
and  the  plains.  This  knowledge  gives  him 
an  advantage  in  deploying  his  forces  and 
helps  him  to  make  the  grades.  Life  is  a 
battle,  with  success  as  the  victory  to  be 
Avon.  It  will  pay  every  man  and  woman 


22  MAKING   THE    GKADE 

to  chart  well  the  field  over  which  the 
fight  is  to  be  waged  and  build  for  the 
struggle. 

It  is  just  as  necessary  to  test  yourself 
as  it  is  necessary  for  the  manufacturers  to 
know  that  every  article  that  goes  into  the 
building  of  their  machines  is  first-class 
and  will  stand  the  strain.  The  highway 
of  life  is  strewn  with  junk, — could  not 
stand  the  strain.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of 
the  men  going  into  business  fail — could 
not  make  the  grade.  Only  about  sixteen 
per  cent  of  life  insurance  policies  taken  out 
are  carried  through — could  not  stand  the 
test.  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the 
mass  of  broken  human  machinery  that  lies 
piled  up  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  It  re- 
sembles the  debris  that  floats  upon  the 
water  after  a  disaster  at  sea,  or  the  wreck- 
age that  strews  the  battlefield  after  the 
carnage  is  over.  "  Could  not  stand  the 
test"  is  the  inscription  on  the  stone  that 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  23 

is  erected  over  the  grave  of  buried  hopes 
and  blasted  lives. 

66 How  can  I  make  the  grade?"  is  the 
query  of  the  man  who  knows  life ;  and 
every  hour  is  spent  in  an  effort  to  solve 
this  problem. 


CHAPTER  II 

HEALTH 

"V/^OU  cannot  climb  many  of  the  hills  in 
A  life  unless  you  have  health.  One  of 
the  saddest  spectacles  of  the  present  day 
is  the  physically  unfit  that  one  sees  on 
every  hand.  In  the  street  cars,  on  the 
Pullmans,  at  the  theatres, — everywhere 
you  see  the  maimed,  the  halt,  and  the 
blind.  Children  start  life  with  a  mortal 
handicap  and  they  never  overcome  it. 
They  grow  up  with  flat  feet,  become  pigeon- 
breasted,  wizen -faced  neurotics;  adenoids 
abound,  enlarged  tonsils  are  found  every- 
where; malformed  jaws  are  met  at  every 
turn. 

Young  men  seem  to  care  nothing  for  the 
charm  of  physical  strength  and  great  en- 
durance. The  gymnasium  does  not  appeal 
to  them.  They  never  learn  the  value  of  a 

24 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  25 

strong,  rugged,  enduring  constitution.  Our 
school  system  is  much  at  fault.  Our  teach- 
ers have  not  grasped  the  great  idea.  It  is 
a  case  of  the  blind  leading  the  blind. 

Biology  is  the  foundation  stone  of  educa- 
tion; but  a  majority  of  our  young  men  and 
women  will  graduate  from  our  so-called 
high  schools  with  only  a  vague  understand- 
ing of  the  meaning  of  this  word.  Few  are 
ever  told  where  they  belong  in  Nature. 
They  know  nothing  of  their  kinship 
with  the  rest  of  the  animate  world. 
Nothing  is  enduring  unless  founded  on 
fact.  Education  is  of  no  value  when  its 
concepts  are  false.  What  matters  it  if  one 
knows  Greek  or  Eoman  history,  and  has 
no  conception  of  the  great  laws  of  life? 
What  is  the  value  to  one  in  being  able  to 
chart  the  heavens  and  have  not  the  slight- 
est conception  of  the  life  cycle  of  the  sim- 
plest cell  ?  If  you  would  be  educated,  you 


26  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

must  know  life,  from  the  simplest  organ- 
ism to  the  most  complex. 

You  cannot  have  health  unless  you  know 
Nature's  laws  and  the  principles  upon 
which  health  depends.  To  be  healthy  you 
must  live  as  the  primitives  lived.  It  is  no 
mystery  why  the  ancients  lived  to  such 
great  age.  Put  man  in  the  environment  of 
the  patriarchs  with  the  patriarchs'  inherit- 
ance, and  you  will  see  that  it  is  no  uncom- 
mon thing  for  men  to  live  a  hundred  years 
and  still  retain  the  bloom  of  youth,  but  you 
cannot  live  under  present  day  conditions 
and  reach  that  age.  To  be  civilized  under 
present  conditions  means,  as  a  rule,  an 
early  grave.  Midnight  suppers,  numerous 
cigarettes,  high  nerve  tension,  an  over- 
loaded intestinal  tract,  high  percentage  of 
protein  diet,  with  little  physical  exercise — 
all  these  are  efficient  tools  for  the  under- 
taker and  assure  him  of  early  employment. 

The  human  machine   is   spoiled  in  the 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  27 

making.  When  you  start  to  take  the  grade 
in  it  your  motor  heats,  your  spark  plug 
misses,  your  carburetor  gums  and  won't 
work,  you  blow  out  a  tire,  then  you  are 
shunted  to  the  side  of  the  road,  or  you 
tumble  back  to  the  level  from  which  you 
started  and  there  you  remain — couldn't 
make  the  grade;  you  are  an  old  worn-out, 
broken-down  wreck  with  a  sign  pinned  to 
you — "For  Sale,  Cheap" — just  like  the 
wreckage  of  wagons  and  buggies  that 
you  see  in  blacksmith  shops  all  over  the 
country. 

A  wave  of  pity  sweeps  over  me  every 
time  I  see  a  derelict,  human  or  machine— 
"could  not  make  the  grade"  is  stamped 
all  over  such  relics.  Now,  frankly,  who  is 
to  blame  for  all  these  human  misfits  ?  Why 
cannot  more  than  forty  to  fifty  per  cent  of 
our  youths  between  the  ages  of  twenty-one 
and  thirty-one  stand  a  physical  test  for  the 
army  and  come  through?  What  is  the 


28  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

matter!  Where  is  the  leak  in  the  factory? 
Undoubtedly,  most  of  it  is  due  to  ignorance 
of  the  great  laws  of  life.  Man  does  not  like 
to  imitate  his  animal  ancestor.  He  wants 
to  forget  his  kinship  with  the  rest  of  the 
animal  world.  He  wants  to  strut  on  life's 
stage  and  brag  about  his  divine  origin,  but 
this  conception  of  life  makes  the  Devil 
laugh  because  his  satanic  majesty  knows 
that  ignorance  is  the  greatest  of  all  crimes, 
and  ignorance  of  one's  origin  is  the  crime 
of  all  crimes.  If  you  would  be  healthy,  get 
back  to  first  principles.  Did  you  ever  see 
an  animal  carrying  around  a  coffee  or  a 
tea  pot?  Did  you  ever  see  an  animal  eat- 
ing a  seven  to  fifteen  course  meal?  Not 
much.  An  animal  eats  one,  not  over  two 
kinds  of  food  at  a  meal,  drinks  water  or 
milk,  and  does  not  need  a  pepsin  tablet  to 
help  digest  it.  Men  are  animals  and  must 
be  treated  as  such  and  their  life  to  some 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  29 

extent  must  be  patterned  after  the  animal 
existence  if  they  would  be  healthy. 

Nothing  is  more  pitiful  than  the  old 
young  man  or  woman.  Just  when  life  is 
really  worth  while,  just  when  the  goal 
is  worth  reaching,  just  when  the  real 
test  comes,  just  when  we  strike  the  one 
grade,  at  the  top  of  which  lies  the  great 
object  to  be  attained,  then  our  machine 
breaks  down  and  we  go  to  the  scrap  heap. 
Pitiful!  It  is  a  tragedy! 

Compensation,  immutable,  unswerving 
and  unchangeable,  always  gets  in  its  work. 
Unless  the  bird  uses  its  wings,  it  will  soon 
forget  how  to  fly;  unless  you  exercise,  your 
muscles  decay — compensation  everywhere. 
You  smoke,  five,  ten,  fifteen,  twenty  ciga- 
rettes a  day,  you  get  a  pleasurable  sensa- 
tion, but  you  lose  in  nerve  poise  and  ac- 
curacy. Drink  alcoholics  for  stimulation 
or  for  the  pleasure  you  derive  from  their 
influence,  and  you  lose  in  bodily  vigor  and 


30  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

endurance.  Eat  heavily  of  highly  seasoned 
food  because  it  tickles  your  palate,  and 
you  suffer  from  autointoxication  and  lose 
your  virile  red-*blooded  punch. 

Become  a  hothouse  plant  and  neglect  ex- 
ercise, and  you  lose  all  physical  endurance 
and  ability  to  withstand  the  impact  with 
the  world.  It  takes  a  well-built  machine  to 
make  the  grades  and  you  cannot  test  or 
know  the  value  of  a  machine  until  the 
going  gets  hard.  No  one  tests  an  auto- 
mobile on  level  roads.  It  takes  the  rocks 
and  the  hills  to  tell  whether  it  has  any 
endurance ;  and  so  it  is  with  life. 

Live  clean,  get  in  close  touch  with  Na- 
ture. Know  from  whence  you  came  and 
whither  you  are  going,  get  acquainted  with 
your  animal  ancestry,  and  don't  be 
ashamed  of  them,  and  try  to  live  without 
all  the  embellishments  of  civilization,  and 
you  will  make  the  grades.  This  is  no  health 
primer.  The  writer  does  not  intend  that  it 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  31 

should  assist  in  diagnosing  a  diseased  con- 
dition or  effecting  a  cure  where  a  disease 
exists,  but  it  is  hoped  that  the  casual 
reader,  in  scanning  its  pages  will  become 
impressed  with  a  suggestion  here  and 
there  that  may  cause  him  or  her  to  place  a 
higher  valuation  on  health  and  look  at  it 
as  a  vital  necessity  in  making  the  grade. 

To  prevent  diseases  is  the  great  goal  of 
modern  medicine.  Healthy  individuals 
are  the  greatest  asset  of  a  state  or  a  na- 
tion and  too  much  importance  cannot  be 
given  to  the  rearing  of  a  race  strong  and 
virile,  able  and  competent  to  climb  the 
hills. 


CHAPTER  III 

ENDURANCE 

"T^NDURANCE  is  dependent  upon  a 
••— '  sound  body  and  a  determined  will. 
There  are  many  flabby  wills  housed  in  a 
physically  sound  body.  When  this  is  the 
case,  there  is  little  endurance;  and,  as  a 
consequence,  there  is  not  much  hill  climb- 
ing for  such  an  individual. 

By  inheritance  man  is  a  lazy  animal. 
Not  many  generations  ago  our  ancestry 
worked  only  enough  to  obtain  the  neces- 
sary food  to  sustain  life  and  an  occasional 
fig  leaf  for  a  dress  suit.  Press  of  circum- 
stances made  it  imperative  that  he  get  out 
and  hustle,  but  the  cell  life  of  today  still 
harks  back  to  the  cell  life  of  its  yesterdays 
and  most  of  us  like  to  hunt  the  shady  side 
of  the  street  and  loaf  along. 

The    will    is    the  Captain  of  the  Soul. 

32 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  33 

Without  it  man  has  no  place  in  civilization 
and  it  takes  a  strong  will  to  drive  the 
human  machine  up  the  hot  and  dusty 
grades.  "What,  kind  of  a  motor  do  you 
use?"  is  the  first  question  asked  of  the 
automobile  salesman  when  he  offers  you  a 
car.  Experience  teaches  you  that  the  value 
of  a  machine  rests  upon  the  stability,  the 
accuracy,  and  the  endurance  of  its  motor. 
Beautiful  upholstery,  silver  trimmings, 
musical  horns,  and  noiseless  rubber  tires 
amount  to  nothing  unless  you  have  a  motor 
that  will  run  and  is  as  sound  as  the  heart 
of  an  oak  that  has  defied  the  storms  for,  lo, 
these  many  years.  So  it  is  with  man.  You 
must  have  the  will  to  do,  else  your  good 
looks,  your  Chesterfieldian  manners,  your 
kindness  of  heart  and  your  good  intentions 
will  avail  you  nothing. 

Your  muscles  may  be  as  strong  as  Her- 
cules' and  your  limbs  as  powerful  as 
Achilles',  but  these  are  of  no  avail  in  the 


34  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

race  of  life  unless  they  are  driven  by  the 
motive  power  of  an  unconquerable,  untir- 
ing will.  A  sound  body  and  a  well-trained, 
resolute  will  give  the  necessary  endurance 
that  puts  one  up  and  over  the  grade.  Many 
a  weak  body  has  been  made  to  accomplish 
wonders  by  a  resolute,  determined  will. 
Undoubtedly  few  individuals  realize  the 
value  of  will  power,  and  surely  there  are 
very  few  individuals  today  that  appreciate 
will  training  as  an  asset  in  life. 

Psychology  is  the  baby  in  the  science 
family;  but  it  is  growing  more  rapidly  than 
Jack's  bean  stalk  ever  developed.  An  un- 
derstanding of  this  science  dispels  about 
all  the  mysteries  that  have  clung  to  man 
since  animal  life  was  first  cradled  in  the 
forests  of  antiquity.  This  science  is  the 
light  that  dispels  all  mysteries  and  shows 
man  exactly  what  he  is  and  what  he  can 
accomplish. 

To  endure  one  must  have  a  well-trained 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  35 

will  and  one  which  demands  and  receives 
obedience  from  the  bodily  functions  and 
powers.  How  is  the  will  to  be  trained  so 
that  it  will  endure?  so  that  it  will  apply 
the  lash  and  drive  our  bodies  on  f  Wishing 
does  not  accomplish.  If  it  did,  life  would 
be  a  hideous  nightmare.  The  inertia  of  in- 
herited laziness  can  only  be  overcome  by 
the  stimulus  of  an  untiring,  well-directed 
will.  Nothing  is  impossible  where  there  is 
resolute  purpose  and  physical  health.  No 
restraining  hands  are  laid  upon  us  save 
our  own ;  but  the  pity  in  life  is  that  few,  if 
any,  of  us  ever  realize  the  value  of  will  and 
the  part  it  plays  until  life  is  well  nigh 
gone ;  and  the  majority  of  that  eighty-five 
per  cent  of  failures  that  are  scrapped  and 
junked  never  knew  that  standing  by  ready 
and  willing  to  help  was  a  power  mightier 
than  the  old  guard  and  more  potential  than 
the  lurid  lightning.  What  electricity  has 
proved  to  be  to  the  motive  world,  will 


36  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

power  is  to  the  physical.  Man  today  is 
stumbling  along,  working  haphazardly, 
falling  by  the  way,  groping  in  the  dark, 
running  on  a  dead  level, — all  because  he 
does  not  understand  the  great  motive 
power,  the  great  value  of  a  well-directed, 
carefully-trained  will,  and  this  power  lies 
within  all. 

For  millions  of  years  the  Niagara  River 
poured  its  immeasurable  gallons  of  water 
over  the  Falls,  and  man  never  realized 
that  buried  in  this  deluge  was  a  power  that 
would  dispel  the  midnight  darkness  of  a 
city  and  turn  Jbhe<  spindles  and  the  wheels 
of  a  commerce  that  could  feed  and  clothe  a 
million  souls.  So  it  is  with  the  power  of 
will.  Men,  women,  and  children  are  rush- 
ing over  the  great  Niagaras  of  life,  wasted, 
useless  failures;  while  all  the  time  there 
is  a  mighty  power  that  would  enable  each 
and  every  one  of  them  to  rival  in  achieve- 
ment the  wizards  whose  light  and  whose 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  37 

reason  have  been  the  guide  posts  of  men 
through  countless  ages. 

You  must  endure  if  you  would  win,  and 
to  endure  you  must  have  a  will  that  knows 
and  understands.  Steam  and  electricity 
are  man's  greatest  servants;  but,  unless 
one  is  trained  in  the  use  of  these  powers, 
they  are  of  no  value.  So  it  is  with  the 
will.  Every  individual  of  average  intel- 
ligence is  endowed  with  a  will,  but  it  is 
dormant  throughout  most  of  our  lives  be- 
cause we  do  not  train  and  use  it. 

A  resolute  will  enabled  John  Paul  Jones 
to  make  the  grade  when  defeat  seemed  in- 
evitable. It  made  Washington  the  savior 
of  personal  liberty  in  the  western  world 
when  all  seemed  lost,  and  it  made  Joffre 
victor  at  the  Marne  and  saved  Paris  and 
the  Eepublic  of  France  when  it  looked  as 
though  nothing  could  stem  the  tide  of 
German  invasion. 

The  ancients  used  to  exhort  their  war- 


38  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

riors  to  be  bold.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
slogan  of  the  man  and  woman  of  today 
should  be:  "Endure,  endure. " 

It  is  pitiful,  but  nonetheless  true,  that 
most  men  and  women  are  quitters.  If  not, 
then  why  so  many  failures  ?  Consult  your 
statistics,  commercial  or  professional.  You 
will  be  appalled  at  the  mortality.  Take  a 
class  of  boys, — we  will  eliminate  the  girls 
because  they  are  not  supposed  to  keep  in 
the  fight  any  longer  than  it  is  necessary  to 
take  on  the  vows  of  matrimony — after 
graduation,  watch  their  careers.  You  will 
find  that  about  one  out  of  ten  rises  to  any 
height.  The  others  cannot  make  the 
grades.  Their  motors  burn  out,  they  have 
no  endurance,  and  they  fall  by  the  way. 
Every  man  in  the  domain  of  commerce,  or 
professional  life,  that  has  made  the  grade, 
has  done  it  because  he  has  had  endurance. 
Of  course,  he  became  tired;  of  course,  the 
way  became  long  and  the  road  dusty;  but 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  39 

the  power  of  endurance  carried  him  on  and 
victory  was  finally  achieved.  Now,  why 
did  these  men  endure?  In  analyzing  this 
question  you  find  the  following  solution: 
First,  they  had  physical  stamina;  they  had 
a  constitution  that  would  stand  the  strain; 
and,  secondly,  they  had  a  will  power, 
trained  and  obedient,  that  drove  them  on. 

Now,  you,  my  reader,  no  doubt,  possess 
both  of  these.  If  not  both,  undoubtedly, 
you  possess  one,  else  you  would  not  be  scan- 
ning these  pages. 

It  lies  within  your  power,  unless  you  are 
a  hopeless  invalid,  or  a  mental  defective, 
to  train  yourself  so  that  you  can  endure, 
so  that  you  can  make  the  grade;  and,  if 
you  do  not,  then  the  fault  lies  with  your- 
self, and  not  with  your  stars,  that  you  are 
an  underling. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IMAGINATION 

TM  AGINATION  is  of  great  assistance  to 
•*•  endurance.  It  is  the  stimulus  that 
keeps  one  fighting  on  when  nerve,  muscle, 
and  brain  are  tired. 

Physicians  find  it  necessary  at  times  to 
administer  powerful  stimulants  to  keep 
the  fires  of  life  from  flickering  out.  A  sur- 
geon's armamentarium  is  never  complete 
unless  he  has  at  his  side  a  hypodermic, 
loaded  with  a  powerful  drug  with  which 
to  stimulate  his  patient  should  the  shock 
of  the  operation  be  too  severe.  Imagina- 
tion is  just  such  a  stimulus  in  making  the 
grade.  Anticipation  is  a  great  lure.  It 
has  cleared  forests  and  built  homes,  irri- 
gated deserts  and  planted  flower  gardens, 
tunneled  mountains  and  brought  to  light 
the  gold  and  buried  treasures  hidden  by 

40 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  41 

the  convulsions  of  the  earth  in  its  child- 
hood days.  It  laid  the  Atlantic  cable,  thus 
enabling  America  to  become  the  next  door 
neighbor  to  Europe;  and  it  put  Dobbins' 
collar  upon  electricity,  enabling  man  to 
send,  by  the  feeble  tick  of  an  instrument,  a 
wireless  call  that  can  be  heard  around  the 
world. 

Ford  anticipated  the  possibilities  of  the 
automobile  as  he  ate  his  hamburger  sand- 
wiches at  midnight  upon  the  streets  of  De- 
troit after  spending  hours  experimenting 
with  a  car  that  he  was  afraid  to  try  to  run 
upon  the  streets  during  the  day,  and  Antici- 
pation is  the  twin  sister  to  Imagination. 

Some  wiseacre  said  sometime,  some- 
where, that  all  work  and  no  play  made  Jack 
a  dull  boy.  This  philosopher  stated  one 
of  the  cardinal  principles  of  life.  Contin- 
uous climbs  bring  on  fatigue  and  fatigue  is 
the  result  of  a  poison  created  by  the  break- 
ing down  of  muscle  tissue,  occasioned  by 


42  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

continuous  exertion.  It  is  during  these 
deadly  fatiguing  spells  on  life's  climb  that 
Imagination  and  Anticipation  get  in  their 
work. 

Every  conqueror  has  at  times  been  tired, 
so  tired  that  life  seemed  not  to  be  worth 
the  living.  Eobert  Bruce  stumbled  into  a 
cave  on  the  mountains  of  Scotland  fatigued 
unto  death  and  no  doubt  said  to  himself — 
"Oh,  what  is  the  use?  I'm  so  tired;"  but 
the  magic  spider  got  in  his  work  about  this 
time  and  through  the  eye  of  imagination 
Bruce  pictured  himself  leading  an  army  to 
victory  on  his  native  hills.  This  picture 
sent  him  up  the  grade  again  and  he  climbed 
on  until  he  reached  its  pinnacle. 

Great  men  grow  tired  just  like  the  small, 
but  the  difference  between  the  great  and 
the  small  is  just  this:  the  great  rests  for  a 
while  and  then  trudges  on  and  still  on; 
while  the  failure,  when  he  stops  to  rest, 
never  starts  going  again  unless  it  be  that 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  43 

the  going  is  down  the  grade.  Imagination 
is  no  more  a  divine  gift  than  is  it  a  di- 
vine gift  for  one  to  master  different  lan- 
guages by  application.  A  powerful,  well- 
trained  imagination,  just  like  a  powerful, 
well-trained  biceps,  is  the  result  of  toil  and 
effort.  It  is  within  the  reach  of  anyone 
who  has  an  average  normal  brain  if  they 
will  pay  the  price  to  obtain  it. 

It  is  just  as  natural  to  grow  weary,  tired, 
and  discouraged  at  times  as  it  is  to  be 
happy  and  hopeful;  but  the  hill  climbers 
are  the  ones  who  recover  from  the  attacks 
of  fatigue  and  discouragement  and  keep  on 
climbing.  Every  day  and  every  night 
sees  them  more  resolute  and  more  deter- 
mined. The  failures  are  those  who  cannot 
recover  from  such  attacks. 

One  of  the  great  lessons  of  life  to  learn 
is  this:  our  fight  is  not  directed  against 
either  gods  or  devils;  we  are  fighting  for 
a  foothold  in  the  world's  affairs,  and  this 


44  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

achievement  is  contested  only  by  our  fel- 
lows and  they  are  as  weak  as  we. 

Nothing  paints  the  sky  quite  so  rosy, 
makes  the  birds  sing  quite  so  sweetly,  or 
gives  to  the  sunshine  and  the  air  quite  so 
much  vigor  and  charm  as  good  health  and 
a  vivid  imagination.  This  is  a  mighty  good 
world;  the  only  fault  lies  with  ourselves. 
If  you  put  water  instead  of  gasoline  in  your 
tank  you  will  never  climb  the  hill;  you 
won't  even  stand  still;  you'll  retrograde  so 
fast  that  when  you  strike  the  bottom  you'll 
be  buried  in  the  mire.  Now  then,  just  put 
the  cold  water  of  discouragement,  despair 
and  hopelessness  into  the  gas  tank  of  life 's 
motor  car  and  you  are  headed  for  the  mud 
flats  of  dismal  failure.  A  cold  motor  will 
not  run.  It  takes  warmth  and  the  vital 
spark  to  get  up  motion.  It  is  just  this  way 
with  life.  To  make  the  grade  you  must 
keep  your  motor  warm,  the  gas  tank  filled 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  45 

and  your   carburetors   cleaned   and  bur- 
nished. 

The  value  of  a  republic  lies  in  the  fact 
that  in  it  all  men  are  free  and  equal.  Bank, 
station,  and  prerogative  are  given  alike  to 
those  who  toil  and  strive  for  them.  Under 
this  form  of  government  the  hill  climbers 
can  go  as  far  as  they  choose.  Under  these 
environments  man  has  nothing  to  fight  ex- 
cept himself,  and  he  alone  is  responsible  if 
the  grades  are  not  made.  But  imagination 
and  anticipation  are  the  spark  plugs  that 
have  driven  the  human  cars  around  the 
world.  Again  I  repeat  that  our  school 
system  is  faulty.  I  have  never  heard  of  a 
teacher  advocating  the  establishing  of  a 
department  given  over  to  the  cultivation 
of  imagination.  On  the  contrary  you  find 
them  discouraging  the  boy  or  the  girl  who 
dares  to  dream,  and  in  this  respect  let  it 
be  said  that  the  majority  of  mothers  and 
fathers  are  dream  killers  themselves. 


46  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

When  a  boy  or  girl  shows  a  desire  to  dwell 
in  their  Italy  and  Greece  filled  with  gods 
and  temples,  these  selfsame  mothers  and 
fathers  smother  with  ridicule  and  scorn  the 
beginning  fires  that  should  be  fanned  into 
a  flame. 

The  motor  is  cracked  in  the  making,  the 
gasoline  of  life  is  diluted  and  turned  into 
ice  water.  Then  Mary  or  John  turns  turtle, 
"Oh,  what's  the  use,"  they  say,  "me  for 
the  bright  lights, ' '  another  car  has  slipped 
from  its  moorings  and  crashed  to  the  bot- 
tom but  the  driver  was  not  to  blame. 

Making  the  grade  is  the  great  problem 
of  life.  It  is  the  vital  burning  problem  of 
every  man  and  woman.  All  want  to  make 
it,  and  most,  if  not  all,  try,  once,  twice,  and 
many  several  times;  but  ignorance,  igno- 
rance of  the  great  laws  of  the  game,  throws 
most  of  them  back  to  the  dead  level;  and 
many  go  on  into  the  mire. 


CHAPTER  V 

PATIENCE 

TDATIENCE  means  more  than  being  able 
•*•  to  stick  to  a  task  until  it  is  finished. 
A  slave  can  do  that,  and  often  blind,  un- 
reasoning patience  keeps  one  at  that  which 
is  unprofitable.  But  patience  does  mean 
having  a  philosophy  that  makes  one  under- 
stand that  it  is  continuous,  well-directed 
efforts  that  win ;  and,  furthermore,  patience 
must  have  an  imaginative  eye  that  sees  the 
completed  task  and  pronounces  it  well 
done.  A  mule  can  plod  up  and  down  the 
field.  It  makes  no  difference  to  the  mule 
whether  cotton  or  weeds  are  being  plowed, 
but  the  plowman  would  have  little  patience 
if  he  did  not  feel  that  he  would  in  season 
harvest  more  than  a  crop  of  weeds. 

To  be  patient,  to  keep  plugging  along, 
to  keep  climbing  the  hill,  you  must  be  in- 

47 


48  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

spired  by,  and  buoyed  up  with,  the  hope 
of  reaching  the  top.  It  is  not  patience,  but 
hopelessness  that  keeps  one  working  at  a 
task  that  holds  out  absolutely  no  promise 
of  ultimate  successful  completion.  The  pa- 
tience that  helps  carry  one  up  the  hill  is 
the  cheerful,  hopeful  kind.  It  is  the  kind 
that  realizes  the  necessity  of  well-directed, 
intelligent,  continuous  efforts.  Continu- 
ous failure  is  the  great  patience  destroyer, 
but  temporary  failure  is  the  sauce  and  the 
spice  of  life.  Continuous  success  brings 
ennui  and  this  condition  is  dangerous.  He 
that  thinketh  he  standeth  had  better  take 
heed  lest  he  fall,  is  mighty  good  logic,  but 
patience  becomes  drudgery  when  hope  has 
fled.  The  animal  cell  transmits  to  its 
progeny  a  restless,  longing,  upward-reach- 
ing instinct.  This  accounts  for  man's  con- 
tinuous progress,  and  it  also  accounts  for 
man's  impatience. 
We  crave  change.  The  Bedouin  of  the 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  49 

desert  cares  nothing  for  a  permanent  abid- 
ing place.  When  this  instinct  manifests  it- 
self, the  millionaire  migrates  to  his  winter 
home  among  the  Savannahs  of  the  South 
and  then  to  his  summer  home  amid  the 
snowfields  of  Maine.  Change,  change 
everywhere ;  that 's  life ;  but  uncurbed  this 
gives  rise  to  a  kind  of  impatience  that 
brings  failure  to  all  of  one 's  undertakings. 
One  finds  something  subtle  in  an  analysis 
of  patience.  Pushed  to  the  extreme  this 
human  quality  can  soon  become  drudgery, 
and  drudgery  is  death  to  accomplishment. 
A  drudge  gets  nowhere  unless  it  be  to  the 
cemetery.  Healthy  impatience  is  needed 
in  climbing.  It  imparts  zest  to  the  game. 
It  is  the  salt  and  spice  needed  to  add  the 
savory  taste  to  the  meats  of  life.  But 
where  is  impatience  to  end,  and  patience  to 
begin?  Ah!  there  is  the  rub!  There  is 
where  your  finer  judgment  comes  in. 
Youth  is  usually  impatient  because  youth 


50  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

is  restive  under  restraint.  Probably  it  is 
for  this  reason  that  in  the  eyes  of  some  it 
is  a  crime  to  be  young.  Youth  does  not  ac- 
complish much,  because,  like  the  birds  in 
the  spring,  it  flits  from  tree  to  tree,  trying 
to  decide  where  it  will  build  its  permanent 
abode. 

Patience,  like  steam  and  electricity,  must 
be  understood  before  its  great  value  can 
be  appreciated,  and  like  these  two  servants 
of  man,  it  can  become  man's  destruction 
if  improperly  handled. 

Self-restraint  and  self-control  are  close- 
ly akin  to  patience,  but  perfect  self-control 
is  not  patience.  Impatience  is  necessary 
to  progress,  but  impatience  exaggerated  is 
self-destructive.  Balanced  rations  are 
necessary  in  maintaining  health ;  and  bal- 
ance between  impatience  and  patience  is 
necessary  in  making  the  grade.  Undoubt- 
edly it  is  for  this  reason  that  youth  is  un- 
reliable, because  it  takes  experience  to  give 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  51 

one  the  necessary  judgment,  and  experi- 
ence comes  with  years. 

A  drill  bites  through  the  hardest  steel 
because  the  drillmaster  directs  the  point 
constantly  against  a  given  spot.  It  is  need- 
less to  comment  upon  the  well-known  story 
about  the  hare  and  the  tortoise.  Success 
everywhere  is  a  vindication  of  the  value  of 
patience.  Every  grade  that  has  ever  been 
made  and  every  hill  that  has  been  climbed 
has  been  done  on  account  of  patient  bend- 
ing to  the  task  in  hand. 

It  is  a  narrow  line  that  sometimes 
separates  success  from  failure.  Many  a 
hill  has  been  almost  climbed;  but  almost 
getting  to  the  top  is  not  getting  there. 
Patience,  and  not  drudgery,  is  the  quality 
necessary  to  keep  one  everlastingly  at  it. 
Ability  to  endure  the  physical  strain  does 
not  always  mean  patiently  sticking  to  a 
task.  Some  of  the  most  patient  and  hope- 
ful workers  are  not  the  strongest  physi- 


52  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

cally.  Many  times  a  physically  weak  body 
is  made  to  endure  an  enormous  strain  on 
account  of  the  hopeful  patience  of  the  in- 
dividual and  why  not  be  patient  and  hope- 
ful in  your  climb?  You  are  climbing  to- 
ward a  goal  that  will  bring  you  success, 
and  the  right  kind  of  success  brings  hap- 
piness. To  achieve  is  a  normal  man's  am- 
bition and  he  wants  to  achieve,  because  his 
success  will  make  him  find  favor  in  some- 
one 's  eyes. 

The  love  passion  is  the  lodestar  that 
points  the  way  in  most  achievements.  This 
statement  may  be  disputed  by  many,  but 
the  cold  light  of  analysis  will  prove  that  it 
is  true.  The  love  light  has  been,  and  will 
always  be,  man's  prime  activator.  It  has 
led  him  through  the  million  years  of  de- 
velopment. It  made  him  shed  the  scales  of 
his  reptilian  ancestry  and  robbed  him  of 
the  long  tail  with  which  his  simian  forefa- 
thers were  blessed.  It  has  driven  him  from 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  53 

a  habitat  among  the  trees  to  a  palace  on 
Riverside  Drive;  and  from  a  tadpole, 
swimming  and  hopping  through  the 
marshes,  to  a  palatial  yacht,  riding  upon 
the  blue  waves  of  the  southern  seas. 
Love  has  done  all  this,  and  it  will  do  even 
more  for  man.  But  patience  must  stay  the 
hand  that  would  rob  man  of  his  achieve- 
ments by  quitting  before  the  task  is  done. 
Patience  matures  the  ear  for  harvest  and 
imprints  the  blush  of  ripeness  upon  the 
cheek  of  the  peach  and  covers  it  with  down. 
This  same  patience  has  brought  man  up 
through  animalism  and  savagery  and  made 
him  the  conqueror  that  he  is  today;  but,  like 
an  enigma,  this  same  patience  can  make  a 
drudge  out  of  the  mightiest  warrior  and 
turn  victory  into  the  blackest  defeat.  Pa- 
tience, then,  like  imagination,  must  be 
trained;  and  it  must  be  well  directed  in  the 
upward  and  never-ending  climb. 


CHAPTER  VI 

COUKAGE 

/COWARDICE  and  ignorance  are  the 
^^  greatest  of  all  human  ills.  Abolish 
these  and  civilization  would  advance  so 
rapidly  that  a  twin-six  under  strong  gas 
could  not  keep  up  with  it.  They  do  more 
to  stifle  man,  hamper  progress,  and  spread 
poverty  and  disease  than  all  other  agencies 
combined.  Cowardice  is  man's  inheritance 
from  his  animal  ancestry.  When  the  rule 
of  tooth  and  claw  was  supreme,  the  weaker 
was  devoured  by  the  strong.  This  condition 
gave  birth  to  fear ;  and  the  weak,  acting  un- 
der this  stimulus,  in  their  efforts  to  pre- 
serve life,  fled  when  the  strong  appeared 
intent  upon  their  kill.  This  self -preserva- 
tive instinct  came  with  other  animal  inher- 
itances, but  when  the  rule  of  reason  suc- 
ceeded brutal  force,  and  mentality  was  en- 

54 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  55 

throned,  fear  was  so  ingrained  in  man's 
protoplasmic  life  that  it  takes  education 
and  training  to  eradicate  it.  All  men  are 
cowards,  but  reason  and  training  can  over- 
come this  inherent  weakness.  Only  the 
brave  can  win.  A  coward  cannot  progress. 
More  of  the  fights  in  life  are  lost  on  ac- 
count of  cowardice  than  from  any  other 
cause.  Financiers  will  loan  money  to  and 
back  a  man  any  time  when  it  is  known 
that  he  is  not  afraid.  Perils  become  pleas- 
ures to  the  brave  and  dauntless;  they  are 
the  spice  of  life  and  a  life  without  thrills 
is  no  life  at  all. 

A  coward  cannot  win  because  fear  sti- 
fles initiative,  paralyzes  effort,  and  throt- 
tles ambition.  It  makes  pygmies  out  of 
giants  and  renders  a  strong  man  as  weak 
and  helpless  as  a  babe.  Keason  is  de- 
throned when  Cowardice  takes  the  scepter; 
then  Logic  gives  way  to  Fallacy,  and  Chaos 
reigns.  The  coward  is  an  object  of  pity. 


56  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

To  him  life  is  a  misery  to  be  endured  be- 
cause it  cannot  be  avoided.  He  cannot  un- 
derstand how  to  enjoy  the  game.  He  is  a 
bankrupt  and  a  failure  for  all  time.  And 
after  all  it  is  so  foolish  to  be  a  coward. 
Life  is  not  so  sweet  that  it  transcends  all 
virtue.  I  would  rather  die  young  as  the 
brave  die  and  leave  a  brave  man's  heritage 
to  the  world  than  to  live  a  coward's  life 
though  it  be  prolonged  until  the  end  of 
time.  Men  live  in  deeds  not  years.  One's 
value  to  the  world  is  measured  by  what  he 
accomplishes,  by  the  service  he  renders  to 
civilization,  and  not  according  to  the 
length  of  time  he  may  have  lived. 

It  takes  a  stout,  brave  heart  to  hew  a 
new  path,  to  climb  a  hill,  to  make  a  grade; 
and  it  is  necessary  to  train  honestly  and 
untiringly  to  overcome  fear.  Adults,  both 
men  and  women,  can  be  convicted  before 
the  bar  for  helping  to  make  cowards.  Chil- 
dren are  hushed  when  they  cry  and  are  put 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  57 

to  sleep  by  being  told  that  a  bogyman  will 
get  them  if  they  don't  watch  out,  and  these 
phantoms  of  childhood  become  real  in  time. 
Mothers  and  fathers,  in  their  ignorance, 
prey  upon  the  fear  instinct  of  their  chil- 
dren and  control  them  through  this  medium 
because  this  club  is  easiest  to  wield.  More 
children  are  beaten  and  bruised  psychically 
in  this  way  than  physically.  It  takes  time, 
patience,  and  courage  to  explain  to  a  child- 
ish mind  why  this  or  that  must  not  be  done 
and  it  is  easier  to  hurl  a  threat  than  to  give 
an  explanation.  A  mother  among  lower 
animals  bites  and  slaps  her  young  in  repri- 
mand. The  human  mother  bites  and  slaps 
her  young  in  a  psychic  manner  by  promis- 
ing that  dire  and  terrible  things  will  hap- 
pen if  they  do  not  obey.  One  is  supposed 
to  be  brutal,  the  other  refined,  but  let  it  be 
said  that  muscle  tissue  when  bruised  re- 
pairs with  much  less  danger  of  permanent 
injury  than  brain  tissue  when  injured  by  a 


58  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

psychic  trauma.  Ignorance  is  the  greatest 
of  all  crimes.  It  is  the  breeder  of  all 
crimes.  Men  lie,  steal,  forge,  and  commit 
murder  on  account  of  their  ignorance  of 
the  great  laws  of  compensation.  They  do 
not  know  that  they  are  a  related  part  in  the 
great  cosmos  and  that  every  time  they 
work  injury  upon  their  fellow  man  they 
work  it  upon  themselves.  Light,  more 
light,  is  the  despairing  cry  of  the  scientist, 
because  light,  and  light  only,  will  save  the 
world. 

Why  must  the  average  man  attain  the 
age  of  thirty-five  to  fifty  before  he  finds 
himself,  before  he  is  squared  away  and 
ready  to  make  his  impress  upon  the  world  ? 
The  most  logical  answer  to  this  question 
undoubtedly  is  this:  it  takes  most  men 
until  that  age  to  unlearn  the  erroneous 
things  taught  them  by  parents  and  teach- 
ers; to  overcome  the  fears  of  childhood  in- 
grained in  them,  and  to  learn  what  consti- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  59 

tutes  real  life.  When  teachers  and  parents 
realize  that  success  in  life  consists  in  being 
able  to  make  the  grade,  more  boys  and 
more  girls  will  be  trained  for  hill  climbers. 
At  present  it  is  enough  to  make  angels 
weep  to  see  the  injustice  heaped  upon  child- 
hood. The  wonder  is  that  even  so  high  as 
five  per  cent  of  business  and  professional 
men  become  signal  successes  and  reach  the 
top  of  the  grade.  If  Henry  Ford  built  his 
cars  as  carelessly  as  ninety  per  cent  of  par- 
ents and  teachers  train  those  under  them, 
the  Ford  factory  would  be  closed,  except 
to  the  owls  and  bats,  in  less  than  two  years. 
Men  pose  as  teachers  who  are  as  ignorant 
of  the  science  of  psychology  as  a  babe  at 
its  mother's  breast  is  ignorant  of  Caledo- 
nian history.  Mothers  and  fathers  who  are 
as  ignorant  of  the  great  psychic  laws  gov- 
erning life  as  an  owl  is  ignorant  of  the 
principles  of  light  are  raising  children,  or 
trying  to  raise  them.  You  cannot  govern 


60  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

and  you  cannot  teach  unless  you  under- 
stand the  power  of  this  great  psychic  tide 
in  a  human  life  that  ebbs  and  flows  like  the 
tide  of  the  mighty  ocean.  Ignorance  is  the 
curse  of  the  world. 

Ninety  per  cent  of  men  and  women,  nor- 
mal in  mind  and  healthy  in  body,  can  make 
the  grade,  can  climb  the  hills  if  they  are 
properly  trained  in  childhood,  and  are 
taught  the  great  laws  of  life. 

The  greatest  of  all  waste  is  that  of 
human  lives.  Scientific  medicine  today  is 
bending  its  every  effort  to  conserve,  to 
lengthen  and  to  strengthen  life.  "  Prevent 
disease  rather  than  cure  it"  is  the  slogan, 
and  the  modern  physician  is  trying  to  teach 
this.  He  knows  the  danger  in  the  psychic 
trauma;  he  know^s  what  it  takes  to  climb 
the  hill;  he  knows  that  the  coward  can 
never  make  the  grade;  and  everywhere  he 
is  trying  to  create  better  than  he  finds. 
Make  our  boys,  our  girls,  our  young  and 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  61 


our  middle-aged  men  and  women  brave  and 
courageous,  then  we  will  have  a  race  of  hill 
climbers,  a  race  that  can  make  the  grade. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SELF-CONFIDENCE 

TC^AITH  in  one's  abilities  has  removed 
mountains.  Lack  of  this  faith  fills 
one's  life  with  sloughs  of  despond.  You 
cannot  climb  successfully  unless  you  have 
unbounded  confidence  in  your  ability  to 
reach  the  top.  Life  is  one  constant  succes- 
sion of  suggestions  and  life  is  bent  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  trend  of  these  sugges- 
tions. 

Self-confidence  is  an  auto-suggestion 
that  you  have  the  ability  to  win,  that  your 
ship  is  staunch  enough  to  weather  the 
storm,  that  your  motor  is  strong  enough 
to  climb  the  hill.  If  you  lack  this  requisite 
to  success,  you  might  just  as  well  get  on  a 
sidetrack  and  content  yourself  with  watch- 
ing the  other  fellow  pass  by.  Lack  of  con- 
fidence is  deadly  to  the  success  germ.  Self- 

62 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  63 

confidence  is  termed  nerve  in  some.  "He 
has  the  nerve  to  win"  is  frequently  said 
about  the  man  who  dares  opposition,  who 
defies  oppression,  who  challenges  obstacles ; 
but  self-confidence  is  a  better  term.  This 
simply  means  that  one  has  faith  in  one's 
undertaking  and  confidence  in  one's  abil- 
ity to  win. 

Confidence  begets  confidence,  repetition 
gives  birth  to  habits,  and  habits  rule  men. 
When  you  get  the  success  habit  you  have 
won  the  victory  of  life. 

Men  have  toiled  and  lost  because  they 
toiled  half-heartedly.  They  had  no  con- 
fidence in  their  undertaking,  they  put  an 
icepack  on  their  motor  and  then  could  not 
understand  why  they  could  never  get  up 
any  speed.  Self-confidence  begets  enthu- 
siasm and  hope  kindles  the  fires  of  deter- 
mination and  builds  a  palace  instead  of  a 
hut. 

The  world's  great  accomplishments  have 


64  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

come  about  because  a  man  had  implicit 
confidence  in  his  undertaking  and  fired  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow  man  until  it  flamed 
as  brightly  as  his  own.  Columbus  knew 
that  by  sailing  westward  he  could  reach 
the  Indies  and  he  told  his  story  with  such 
enthusiasm  that  Isabelle  caught  the  vision 
and  stripped  her  jewels  from  neck  and 
arms  and  cast  them  at  the  adventurer's 
feet.  Eeed,  Carroll,  and  Lazar  were  con- 
fident that  the  yellow  fever  germ  was  car- 
ried by  the  mosquito.  They  were  so  con- 
fident that  this  was  true  that  they  bared 
their  own  arms  to  the  sting  of  the  mos- 
quito previously  fed  upon  the  blood  of  a 
yellow  fever  victim;  subsequent  results 
proved  their  correctness  and  ever  since 
these  experiments  were  made  the  South 
has  smiled  in  security,  serene  in  the  knowl- 
edge that  never  again  can  this  grim  mes- 
senger of  death  invade  her  land. 
Morse  knew  that  an  alphabet  of  dots  and 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  65 

dashes  could  be  worked  out  so  that  elec- 
tricity could  be  put  in  chains  and  do  man's 
bidding.  Today  every  message  that  spats 
its  wireless  way  around  the  world  is  a  vin- 
dication of  his  idea. 

Turn  anywhere,  look  down  time's  corri- 
dor, and  you  find  that  the  men  have  won 
who  knew  that  their  message  was  correct 
and  true.  They  first  convinced  themselves 
and  then  convinced  the  world.  You  can 
lay  a  match  with  perfect  security  beside  a 
train  load  of  powder;  so  long  as  the  match 
is  not  ignited  the  powder  is  perfectly  safe 
from  explosion,  but  light  the  match  and 
you  rock  the  world.  You  will  never  do 
anything,  accomplish  anything,  or  get  any- 
where until  you  light  your  match;  but 
Avhen  your  own  torch  starts  burning,  you 
have  a  chance  to  ignite  the  world. 

Here  again  our  educational  system  is  at 
fault.  Boys  and  girls  are  penned  in  a  room 
twenty  feet  square  and  are  told  about  the 


MAKING    THE    GRADE 


abstruse  problems  of  geometry  or  the  in- 
tricacies of  a  language  that  lost  all  value 
after  the  light  of  the  Eoman  empire  ceased 
to  burn;  but  there  is  never  a  word  said  to 
these  embryo  men  and  women  that  theirs 
is  the  hand  that  controls  their  destiny,  that 
in  their  keeping  is  a  pearl  of  great  price, 
that  self-confidence,  nurtured,  trained,  de- 
veloped, will  prove  the  lamp  that  lights  the 
universe.  The  crime  for  which  the 
twentieth  century  will  be  accused  is  its 
mistakes  in  education.  A  man  here  and 
there  gets  the  so-called  secrets  of  success, 
he  stumbles  by  chance  or  otherwise  upon 
the  great  laws  that  make  him  win;  and  he 
uses  this  influence  to  further  his  power 
over  his  fellows.  Carnegie  caught  it  and 
then  the  lurid  glare  from  his  steel  furnaces 
painted  the  midnight  skies;  but  he  has 
made  a  dismal  failure  in  his  efforts  to  send 
this  message  ringing  throughout  the  world. 
Almost  anyone  can  read.  Look  around  you 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  67 

in  the  street  cars  and  you  see  everyone 
reading;  and  while  they  read,  they  are  on 
the  way  to  have  their  necks  collared  and 
their  wrists  clasped  in  handcuffs  by  the 
man  who  knows.  We  do  not  need  readers 
only;  we  need  thinkers; — men  and  women 
trained  to  think  for  themselves,  trained  to 
be  independent  and  self-confident. 

Kockefeller  is  a  public  benefactor.  His 
educational  scheme  would  be  complete  if 
he  would  only  add  to  the  great  institution 
that  bears  his  name,  a  department  where 
teachers  could  be  trained  in  psychology, 
the  science  of  conduct,  the  science  of  know- 
ing yourself,  and  then  send  these  teachers 
out  to  instruct  men  and  women  how  to  de- 
velop confidence  and  how  to  know  them- 
selves. Few  men  can  think.  Most  all  can 
read;  but  it  is  the  thinker  who  does  things. 
Look  at  Germany  today.  A  coterie  of 
scholars  have  done  the  thinking  for  eighty 
million  souls.  In  turn  for  this  thinking, 


68  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

many  have  been  willing  to  fight  and  die. 
Now  the  conflagration,  started  when  the 
match  was  struck  by  some  unknown 
Servian,  is  lighting  up  the  world,  and 
America  has  shuffled  her  cards,  dealt  out 
a  hand,  and  sits  in.  Self-confidence 
has  swayed  the  scepter  over  man  and 
over  his  animal  ancestry  from  the  spawn- 
ing time  of  Creation.  It  has  lighted  all 
the  intellectual  fires  that  have  burned 
upon  the  hilltop  of  achievement,  and  this 
same  self-confidence  will  go  on  to  victory 
when  all  other  human  qualities  have  lain 
down  to  die.  Confidence  can  be  the  gift  of 
all.  It  is  the  Geni  standing  by  ready 
to  grant  man's  every  wish,  but  it 
must  be  recognized,  it  must  be  nurtured 
and  it  must  be  trained.  This  quality  puts 
men  over  the  grade  and  up  the  hill  and 
gives  them  the  right  to  conquer. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OPTIMISM 

OUNSHINE  is  essential  to  life.  Disease 
^  and  crime  breed  and  grow  where  there 
is  darkness.  A  hopeless  individual  is  al- 
ready defeated.  The  poison  has  entered 
his  soul  and  paralyzed  his  initiative.  Pes- 
simism has  crowded  the  lower  rungs  of 
life's  ladder  and  gives  plenty  of  room  to 
those  who  would  go  to  the  top. 

Optimism  is  a  state  of  mind,  but  it  is 
more  contagious  than  the  measles.  Like  a 
little  leaven,  it  leaveneth  the  whole,  but 
this  quality  is  necessary  to  anyone  who 
succeeds  in  making  the  grade.  All  success- 
ful men  are  optimists.  If  they  were  not, 
they  could  not  succeed.  It  is  probable  that 
some  individuals  who  revel  in  pessimism 
have  reached  the  top;  but,  like  barnacles, 


70  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

they  have  ridden  up  fastened  to  the  back 
of  the  other  fellow. 

Jim  Hill  was  optimistic  with  reference 
to  the  future  of  the  Northwest.  To  him 
that  empire  was  capable  of  being  converted 
into  the  granary  of  the  world.  He  believed 
in  its  future.  In  his  imagination  he  saw 
fields  of  grain  waving  golden  in  the  sun; 
he  saw  a  railroad,  reaching  across  the  for- 
est, over  the  mountain,  through  the  vale, 
on  and  still  on  until  it  touched  the  tidewater 
of  Puget  Sound.  He  believed  in  the  North- 
west and  made  the  Northwest  what  it  is 
today.  He  was  optimistic  and  his  opti- 
mism enabled  him  to  make  the  grade. 

The  Christian  Science  church  has 
climbed  the  hill  because  its  leaders  and 
teachers  are  optimists.  In  this  respect  it 
is  so  far  ahead  of  other  denominations  that 
the  orthodox  churches  can  scarcely  distin- 
guish the  tail  light  on  the  Eddy  machine, 
and  as  the  climb  still  goes  on,  the  distance 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  71 

between  these  two  organizations  will  in- 
crease. 

Healthy,  vigorous,  normal  men  and 
women  want  to  be,  and  are,  optimistic;  but 
some  killjoy  comes  along  on  a  bright  day 
and  says  to  Molly  or  John,  "You  are  look- 
ing badly,  don't  you  think  the  world  is 
lost  I  Isn't  it  terrible  how  late  that  Jones 
girl  stays  out  with  her  beaux?  Did  you 
know  that  Jim  Pollywog  has  infantile 
paralysis  and  all  the  children  on  this  block 
are  in  danger?"  Goodbye  to  John  or 
Molly's  sunshine.  They  have  been  hit  a 
solar  plexus  blow  by  some  old  dyspeptic 
who  should  have  been  confined  as  a  public 
nuisance  long  ago.  And  thus  the  world 
goes  on.  It  is  easier  to  condemn  than  to 
praise,  easier  to  kick  a  ball  down  hill  than 
to  push  one  up. 

Mrs.  Eddy  was  a  good  psychologist,  so 
are  the  homeopathic  physicians.  One  knew 
that  the  world  would  rather  be  happy  than 


72  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

sad,  the  other  knew  that  people  would 
rather  take  a  small  sugar-coated  pill  than 
a  spoonful  of  slough  water  as  bitter  as  gall. 
If  the  Protestant  churches  do  not  abolish 
the  cowl,  the  long  face,  glowing  fires  and 
roasting  irons,  the  Christian  Scientists  will 
soon  have  the  odds  so  much  in  their  favor 
that  churches  everywhere  will  be  turned 
into  reading  rooms  and  ministers  will  be 
readers  of  the  new  Bible. 

Pessimism  is  a  sign  of  disease.  When 
the  world  is  black  to  you,  your  alimentary 
tract  has  become  the  breeding  ground  for 
a  million  germs  that  have  poisoned  you 
and  obstructed  your  vision.  Sane,  healthy 
individuals  never  wear  a  grouch.  Men  and 
women  are  made  invalids  and  criminals  be- 
cause they  lose  hope.  You  try  to  dam  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  ocean's  tide  and  you 
court  destruction.  Try  to  dam  the  great 
psychic  tide  in  a  human  life  and  you 
are  undertaking  something  equally  as  dan- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  73 

gerous.  Man  was  born  to  be  happy,  to  be 
healthy,  to  rule,  to  win,  and  to  love. 
Thwart  any  of  these  laws  and  you  beget 
disease,  you  beget  sorrow,  you  make  men 
cowards  and  bring  on  premature  death. 
And,  after  all,  what  is  the  use  to  sorrow? 
Life  flows  on  in  its  remorseless  way,  in- 
dependent of  any  thought  or  act  of  ours. 
Men  are  born,  marry,  and  die,  irrespective 
of  whether  you  and  I  smile  or  frown ;  but 
sorrow  kills,  it  paralyzes  and  renders  you 
inert. 

Crile,  the  great  Cleveland  surgeon,  has 
demonstrated  that  sorrow  reduces  the 
chance  of  a  patient's  recovery  from  an 
operation  more  than  one-half,  and  fear  of 
an  operation  literally  kills.  Sorrow,  grief, 
pessimism,  have  made  serfs  of  men  and 
women.  Banish  this  somber  triad  and  you 
will  add  fifty  per  cent  to  the  longevity  of 
life,  you  will  double  the  value  economically 
of  every  man  and  woman,  and  you  will  in- 


74  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

crease  the  percentages  of  success  a  thou- 
sand fold. 

Henry  Ford  knows  life.  He  may  have 
started  only  as  a  mechanic  and  made  his 
wealth  out  of  things  mechanical,  but  some- 
where he  caught  the  whisperings  from  hu- 
man hearts  and  he  has  interpreted  these 
whisperings  correctly.  He  knows  what  is 
necessary  to  make  efficient  workmen  and 
that  in  accordance  with  the  efficiency  of  his 
workmen  does  he  progress. 

A  living  wage,  hope  of  independence  in 
old  age,  hygienic  surroundings,  love  and 
kindness, — this  is  the  slogan  in  the  Ford 
factory  and  this  is  the  Golden  Rule  of  life. 

Be  an  optimist  if  you  would  make  the 
grade — not  a  foolish  optimist,  not  the  kind 
that  would  have  you  mix  matches  and  gaso- 
line, or  the  kind  that  would  have  you  send 
a  babbling  baby  girl  to  fight  a  bull,  but  the 
healthy,  sensible,  capable  kind  that  makes 
you  see  the  glint  of  sunshine  everywhere 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  75 

and  the  flowers  that  bloom  along  the  way. 
This  spirit  will  put  red  blood  in  your  veins, 
will  put  determination  in  your  heart  and 
will  make  you  make  the  grade. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FAITH  IN  THE  SUCCESS  OF  YOUR 
UNDERTAKING 


"V^OU  must  believe  in  yourself  and  in  the 
service  that  you  are  capable  of  ren- 
dering to  the  world  if  you  would  win. 
You  must  convince  yourself,  first,  that  you 
are  capable  of  making  the  grade,  and  with 
the  saturation  of  every  fiber  in  your  being 
with  this  belief  success  will  come.  If  you 
want  to  fire  your  fellow  man  with  enthusi- 
asm and  the  power  to  win,  pat  that  fellow 
on  the  back  and  say,  "Old  man,  you  are  a 
winner,  I  believe  in  you,  you  are  doing  a 
great  work,  just  keep  on  striving,  hew  to 
the  line,  fight  on,  and  victory  is  yours." 
If  we  could  have  words  like  this  repeated 
to  us  frequently,  honestly,  conscientiously, 
and  enthusiastically,  the  business  mortal- 
ity of  the  world  would  be  lessened. 

76 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  77 

It  is  a  pity  that  so  many  people  belong 
to  the  icewater  brigade  and  keep  their 
tank  full  all  the  time.  It's  a  crime  to  dis- 
courage any  individual.  It  takes  the  zest 
out  of  life  and  makes  sorrow  breed  a  crop 
where  happiness  should  reign.  But  man  is 
envious.  Your  neighbor  slips  on  the  grade, 
falls  back  or  gets  ditched  to  one  side.  You 
come  chugging  along  on  a  good  head  of 
steam  and  seem  to  be  making  the  grade, 
and  this  envious  brother  slips  some  water 
in  your  gasoline,  or  puts  a  tack  in  your  tire 
and  soon  you  join  him  on  the  roadside  and 
thus  the  failure  family  grows. 

Do  not  expect  plaudits  from  the  world 
as  a  free-will  offering.  If  you  want  recog- 
nition, you  must  go  out  and  fight  for  it  and 
you  must  wring  it  with  the  hands  of  toil 
from  an  unwilling  populace.  The  world 
will  pay  its  tribute  of  respect  for  signal 
service,  but  it  never  applauds  the  loser. 
You  must  win  to  find  favor  in  your  neigh- 


78  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

bor's  eye.  While  it  is  true  that  the  world 
will  not  applaud  you  and  cheer  you  on  in 
your  fight,  the  fact  remains  that  you  can 
applaud  and  cheer  yourself. 

Perfect  faith  in  your  ultimate  success  is 
the  greatest  of  all  tonics  and  it  is  the  tonic 
that  is  constantly  at  your  service.  Every 
man  has  a  double ;  there  are  two  beings  on 
hand  all  the  time — the  conscious  and  the 
subconscious.  The  subconscious  wants  to 
help  but  the  conscious  man  is  ignorant  of 
his  ally  and  goes  through  life  on  one  cylin- 
der. We  sleep  and  dream.  In  our  dreams 
the  subconscious  is  in  the  ascendancy  be- 
cause our  conscious  self  is  then  uncon- 
scious. 

Auto-suggestion  is  our  means  of  com- 
munication with  the  subconscious  mind. 
Through  this  medium  we  keep  in  constant 
touch  with  our  ally  and  we  need  never  be 
afraid  of  its  deserting  us.  The  men  who 
have  made  the  most  pronounced  success 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  79 

are  the  men  who  use  this  power.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  it  is  called  to 
their  assistance  and  it  has  never  been 
known  to  fail.  If  you  need  convincing  evi- 
dence of  this,  talk  to  a  man  that  is 
pursuing  some  great  idea  and  has  im- 
plicit faith  in  his  ultimate  success. 
You  soon  catch  his  spirit  and  shortly  be- 
come an  ardent  supporter  of  his  opinions. 
His  faith  convinced  you,  but  first  his  faith 
convinced  himself.  You  simply  caught 
some  of  the  warmth  with  which  his  spirit 
was  all  aglow.  This  quality  is  that  which 
distinguishes  the  man  of  achievement  from 
the  common  herd.  All  men  are  capable  of 
developing  this  power ;  but  like  the  gold  in 
the  mountain  side,  it  is  hidden  from  view 
and  can  only  be  utilized  by  digging  and 
working  to  bring  it  to  the  surface.  The 
road  to  success  is  as  plain  as  the  Lincoln 
Highway,  but  men  are  blind.  Indolence, 
pleasure,  procrastination,  ill  health,  cow- 


80  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

ardice,  and  all  the  negative  powers  of 
darkness  have  hidden  the  light  of  achieve- 
ment from  their  eyes.  The  populace  sees 
one  of  its  fellow  men  climb  over  its  head 
by  sheer  merit.  It  tries  to  pull  him  back 
to  its  level,  but  he  still  goes  on  and  makes 
the  grade.  Instead  of  subjecting  this  man 
to  the  cold  light  of  analysis  and  finding 
out  why  he  won,  the  crowds  take  up  all 
their  time  in  condemning  him,  and  envying 
his  achievement;  but  the  same  rules  that 
this  man  followed  are  open  to  the  crowd, 
they  can  choose  the  same  path,  and 
they  can  achieve  the  same  as  he.  Suc- 
cess never  locked  and  barricaded  its  doors 
against  man.  It  is  simply  fleet  of  foot  and 
challenges  in  a  race  of  endurance  and 
pluck,  and  victory  has  always  been 
awarded  to  the  strong. 

Believe  in  yourself,  know  you  will  win, 
and  the  first  great  barrier  has  been  over- 
come. Lack  of  faith  in  your  work  is  a  hu- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  81 

man  handcuff  and  chains  you  tight  and 
solid  to  the  rocks  of  dismal  failure.  No 
wonder  Christ  said  that  if  you  had  suf- 
ficient faith  you  could  move  mountains. 
This  is  literally  true  and  every  successful 
man  is  a  living  example  that  such  is  the 
case.  It  is  enough  to  make  angels  weep  to 
see  the  lack  of  faith  that  the  majority  of 
men  and  women  display  in  their  work. 
Labor  unions  are  a  first-class  protection 
against  class  oppression  but  they  fall  short 
of  the  mark  that  they  could  reach  if  they 
would  do  some  educational  work  among 
their  members.  Personally,  I  am  for  prop- 
erly conducted  labor  unions.  There  is  no 
use  trying  to  deny  the  fact  that  man  is  in- 
herently selfish  and  domineering.  With- 
out labor  unions,  many  employers  would 
make  peons  and  serfs  of  their  employees, 
but  labor  leaders  are  blind  to  the  great 
laws  of  evolution  and  to  the  great  princi- 
ples of  service.  Labor  unions  have  trained 


82  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

men,  not  educated  them.  The  educated 
know  they  must  serve  their  work  if  they 
would  have  their  work  serve  them;  faith 
in  your  work,  love  of  it  and  implicit  faith 
in  its  future  is  the  greatest  service  you  can 
give  to  the  business  of  life. 

The  hope  of  mankind  lies  in  love  and 
work.  When  God  drove  man  out  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden  and  made  him  earn  his 
living  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  the  dawn 
of  a  new  day  was  ushered  in.  There  would 
have  been  no  progress  if  Adam  and  Eve 
had  remained  in  that  mortal  Paradise ;  life 
would  have  become  burdensome,  and  death 
a  thing  desired,  because  it  would  cut  short 
an  ennui  that  is  more  terrible  than  death. 

Work  is  the  crowning  achievement  of 
man.  Labor  and  love  are  the  dual  forces 
that  have  mastered  all  difficulties,  climbed 
all  the  hills,  and  made  all  the  grades  over 
which  civilization  has  trod  in  its  upward 
and  onward  march. 


CHAPTER  X 

POISE 

T> ALANCE  is  necessary  in  all  things. 
""•^  Nature  demands  and  preserves  an 
equilibrium.  Get  out  of  balance  and  you 
are  in  danger  of  a  fall.  A  well-ordered  and 
successful  life  consists  of  being  able  to  pre- 
serve your  poise,  in  keeping  in  tune  and  in 
harmony  with  nature.  Insanity  is  caused 
by  the  loss  of  mental  balance  and  failure 
comes  to  a  life  that  is  not  well  poised.  It 
is  amusing,  though  pitiful,  to  see  the 
energy  wasted  by  raving  over  the  weather. 
"This  is  the  hottest  day  I  ever  experi- 
enced"  is  hurled  at  you  a  dozen  times  dur- 
ing the  morning  by  some  fuming,  fussy 
neurotic  when  a  glance  at  the  thermometer 
would  convince  one  that  the  temperature 
is  about  normal.  "I  am  dead  tired,  utterly 
worn  out,  worked  to  death,"  is  said  over 

83 


84  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

and  over  again,  day  after  day  by  individ- 
uals who  are  perfectly  normal  in  every 
way  except  for  lack  of  poise.  Haste,  ex- 
travagant statements,  fussing  and  fuming 
does  nothing  but  burn  up  your  gasoline. 
You  stand  still  all  the  time  but  your  engine 
is  running  at  top  speed. 

Mrs.  Eddy  scored  her  greatest  hit  with 
the  Christian  Science  religion  when  she 
made  as  its  chief  tenet  the  abolishment  of 
worry.  If  you  want  to  see  a  satisfied  in- 
dividual and  one  who  knows  that  every- 
thing is  all  right,  you  must  meet  a  Simon- 
pure  Christian  Scientist.  It  is  quite  a 
beautiful  religion  and  one  that  seems  to 
serve  the  purpose. 

An  engine  needs  a  governor;  without 
this  its  value  is  nil.  Instead  of  serving 
man  it  destroys.  The  same  is  true  of  life. 
Lack  of  poise,  lack  of  perfect  control  of 
our  emotions,  lack  of  order  and  equanimity, 
and  life  becomes  chaos;  nothing  is  accom- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  85 

plished,  all  the  energy  and  efforts  needed 
in  climbing,  in  making  the  grades,  are 
burned  up  while  we  stand  stock  still. 
"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  can  well  be 
answered  in  the  affirmative.  Life  is  so 
interrelated  that  every  individual  is  a  cog 
fitting  into  a  neighboring  wheel.  Econom- 
ic loss,  inefficiency,  waste  and  destruc- 
tion are  felt  by  those  living  far  and  away 
from  the  immediate  scene. 

A  parent  laughs  at  the  childish  tantrum, 
but  this  mental  gyration  is  burning  a  path 
of  destruction  across  that  child's  mind 
that  will  cause  misery,  suffering,  and  fail- 
ure. It  is  easier  to  laugh  than  to  repair,  to 
threaten  than  to  explain,  and  the  march  of 
ignorance  goes  on.  Anger  burns  up  a  mil- 
lion tons  of  human  energy  and  leaves  noth- 
ing but  ashes  that  blight  and  wither  every 
object  that  they  may  touch.  What  a  pity 
that  self-restraint  is  not  featured  more  and 
more  in  the  home,  in  the  schoolroom,  and 


86  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

in  the  marts  of  trade  and  commerce.  A 
man  or  woman  who  is  composed  under  all 
conditions  is  the  bulwark  of  civilization. 
Perfect  poise  could  have  prevented  all 
wars,  would  thin  the  ranks  of  the  legal 
profession,  the  members  of  which  fatten 
upon  the  fights  and  bickerings  of  their  fel- 
low men,  and  would  close  the  doors  of 
nearly  all,  if  not  quite  all,  the  sanatoriums 
and  asylums  in  this  country.  Nervous 
prostration  is  on  the  increase.  The  coun- 
try hillsides  are  being  dotted  with  institu- 
tions where  the  neurotic,  the  hysteric,  and 
the  unbalanced  assemble  for  treatment 
and  for  re-education;  all  caused  from  lack 
of  poise,  lack  of  a  governor  to  properly 
regulate  life,  to  harmonize  it  with  the  laws 
of  nature  by  which  all  things  came  into  ex- 
istence and  by  which  they  must  be  ruled. 
What  a  pleasure  it  is  to  meet  an  individual 
of  perfect  poise,  not  a  prude,  but  a  man  or 
a  woman  that  understands  life  and  the  laws 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  87 

of  living.  Calm,  courageous,  hopeful,  pa- 
tient, determined,  never  losing  sight  of  the 
goal,  the  person  with  poise  moves  on.  He 
lives  one  day  at  a  time  and  tries  to  make 
every  minute  of  the  present  count.  No 
time  is  spent  in  idle  romancing  on  what  the 
future  may  bring  to  him  and  the  past 
with  its  mistakes  and  its  sorrows  is  forgot- 
ten. Eight  now,  the  contact  point  with 
the  past  and  the  future  is  his  chief  concern 
and  he  makes  the  present  the  golden  mo- 
ment of  opportunity.  Such  an  individual 
is  headed  straight  toward  the  Goal  of  Suc- 
cess. He  may  be  halted,  but  such  an  inter- 
ruption will  be  only  temporary.  His 
great  business  in  life  will  go  on  and  he  will 
get  to  the  top. 

Most,  if  not  all,  the  successes  in  life  are 
those  individuals  with  poise.  There 
are  rare  cases  where  this  principle  is  in- 
grained in  the  individual  early  in  life  and 
then  we  have  the  early  successes.  Occa- 


88  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

sionally  you  see  the  bank  president,  the 
congressman,  the  governor  of  a  state  or 
the  president  of  some  mighty  corporation 
who  has  broken  all  precedents  and 
achieved  the  goal  at  thirty  to  thirty -five. 
These  individuals  were  early  trained  in 
self-mastery,  either  by  their  teachers  or 
by  themselves,  but  such  instances  are  rare. 
Most  men  who  win  arrive  after  they  out- 
grow the  error  taught  them  by  their  blind 
leaders.  This,  no  doubt,  is  the  reason  why 
more  than  half  of  a  life  is  spent  before  one 
finds  one's  self  and  evolves  a  correct  phi- 
losophy of  life. 

The  God  of  Failure  must  grin  every  time 
he  takes  account  of  his  human  chattels. 
Worse  than  sheep  do  men  and  women  trail 
a  leader  or  a  precedent.  Judges  render 
their  decisions  in  accordance  with  the  de- 
cision of  some  judge  preceding  them. 
Business  is  conducted  by  men  today  like 
their  ancestors  conducted  it  a  quarter  of  a 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  89 

century  ago.  Physicians  are  treating  cases 
like  they  imagine  textbook  writers  treat 
them  and  thus  the  procession  continues. 
The  eighty-five  per  cent  who  fail  are  the 
trailers.  They  never  work  out  their  own 
methods  of  procedure,  they  never  think 
for  themselves.  Lack  of  poise,  lack  of  sta- 
bility of  purpose  make  them  a  weathercock, 
to  be  blown  about  by  every  varying  wind. 
A  ship  must  be  held  to  its  course  if  it  ever 
reaches  the  harbor.  The  pilot  never  takes 
his  hand  off  the  wheel.  Through  shallows 
and  in  deep  currents,  he  threads  his  way 
on  and  still  on.  If  he  does  not  follow  these 
fixed  unvarying  laws  of  navigation  he  soon 
brings  destruction  to  himself,  his  cargo, 
and  his  passengers.  Every  man  or  woman 
is  the  pilot  on  his  or  her  ship  down  the 
Kiver  of  Time.  They  must  steer  carefully 
and  be  at  the  wheel  constantly.  Indecision, 
impatience,  cowardice  means  loss  of  con- 
trol and  then  you  are  on  the  rocks. 


90  MAKING   THE    GRADE       . 

Perfect  balance,  careful  judgment,  and 
an  understanding  of  values  gives  one  poise 
and  enables  the  voyage  to  be  made  with- 
out mar  or  mishap.  Training  for  poise  is 
one  of  the  great  businesses  of  life.  In  this, 
as  in  everything  else  that  is  worth  while,  it 
is  found  that  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price 
of  success.  You  cannot  maintain  poise  and 
neglect  your  training  any  more  than  an 
athlete  can  keep  in  physical  condition  and 
neglect  exercise.  But  poise  can  be  at- 
tained and  kept.  Its  maintenance  means 
much  and  it  is  of  inestimable  value  in 
making  the  grade. 


CHAPTER  XI 

COKRECT  ESTIMATION  OF  VALUES 

rrvEERE  is  both  a  science  and  an  art  in 
-*•  the  correct  estimation  of  values.  It 
takes  training  and  mature  judgment  to 
pick  the  false  from  the  true,  and  there  is 
a  fine  art  in  the  application  of  values  to  the 
things  in  life  that  are  worth  while. 

It  is  easy  for  one  to  fall  into  the  error 
of  thinking  values  are  relative,  except 
those  standardized  by  mathematical  pre- 
cision. Perspectives  of  value  may  vary, 
but  the  inherent  value  remains  irrespective 
of  whether  an  article  be  judged  by  one 
competent  to  pass  an  opinion  on  its  worth 
or  by  a  mere  tyro  and  the  value  of  those 
things  in  life  that  assist  in  making  the 
grade  remain  fixed  and  definite,  it  makes 
no  difference  through  whose  eyes  they  are 
looked  upon. 
Industry  has  a  definite  value  in  the  mak- 

91 


92  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

ing  of  a  success  in  life.  The  hill  climber 
knows  this  and  his  constant  application  is 
one  of  the  reasons  for  his  continuous  prog- 
ress. The  dilettante  has  no  estimation  as 
to  the  value  of  industry ;  to  him  work  is  a 
burden  to  be  carried  only  when  stern  ne- 
cessity forces  him  to  it,  but  the  value  of 
industry  remains  and  the  understanding  of 
it  brings  success  to  the  industrious  one. 
Honesty  has  fixed  and  definite  values,  that 
must  be  understood.  The  man  of  integrity 
knows  that  a  successful  life  is  based  upon 
honesty,  and  he  strives  to  make  this  a  cor- 
ner stone  in  the  structure  that  he  builds. 
The  fact  that  the  less  honorable  individual 
fails  to  take  into  account  this  feature  and 
builds  his  house  upon  the  sand  does  not  de- 
tract one  jot  or  tittle  from  the  intrinsic 
worth  of  honesty.  The  value  of  patience, 
imagination,  self-confidence,  health,  truth, 
and  honesty  of  purpose  remains  the  same, 
and  will  always  be  fixed  and  definite;  it 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  93 

makes  no  difference  what  your  estimation 
of  them  may  be. 

A  yardstick  measures  thirty-six  inches. 
If  one  looks  at  a  string  that  is  thirty-six 
inches  in  length  and  says  that  it  is  only 
thirty-four,  the  thirty-six  inches  still  re- 
main; the  value  is  not  lost  because  some 
individual  underestimated  it. 

A  correct  understanding  of  values  that 
touch  the  great  principles  of  life  is  an  ab- 
solute necessity  in  making  the  grade. 
Your  taste  may  differ  from  that  of  your 
neighbor,  your  likes  and  your  dislikes  may 
be  entirely  at  variance,  but  all  must  agree 
on  the  worth  of  the  cardinal  factors  that 
constitute  a  successful  life. 

Pleasures  have  a  great  value.  The 
esthetic  must  play  a  part  in  making  the 
grade,  but  an  incorrect  value  placed  upon 
pleasures  may  bring  about  one's  utter  ruin. 
Narcotics,  depressants,  and  various  medi- 
cines have  a  value,  but  a  misunderstanding 


94  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

of  these  values  may  cause  them  to  assume 
the  role  of  a  destroyer.  To  judge  correct- 
ly, to  know  values  and  to  estimate  their 
importance  in  building  the  fabric  of  life 
is  one  of  the  fine  points  in  climbing  the  hill. 

The  great  problem  constantly  coming  up 
is  how  can  one  interpret  values  correctly 
and  get  a  true  conception  as  to  their  worth. 
Careful  analysis  will  enable  one  to  detect 
the  false  from  the  true,  the  counterfeit 
from  the  genuine,  and  such  an  analysis  is 
always  possible. 

A  good  engineer  can  tear  down  his  ma- 
chine and  build  it  all  over  again,  or  he  can 
take  the  object  in  concrete  and  reduce  it  to 
a  pile" of  scraps.  Analyzing  one  of  life's 
problems  reduces  by  half  the  difficulties 
encountered.  Tear  down  the  stone  wall 
that  impedes  your  progress;  you  may  not 
be  able  to  overcome  it  en  masse;  but  take 
it  down  piece  by  piece  and  you  will  soon 
have  it  leveled  to  the  ground. 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  95 

Nothing  is  impossible  to  the  man  or  the 
woman  who  can  correctly  judge  values. 
Most  individuals  exaggerate.  It  seems  to 
be  impossible  to  form  an  absolutely  cor- 
rect conception  of  what  a  thing  really  is 
worth.  In  business  most  men  deceive 
themselves  as  to  the  real  condition  of  their 
affairs.  Any  banker  will  tell  you  that  he 
will  discount  from  one-third  to  one-half 
the  reported  net  worth  of  any  commercial 
statement  that  is  not  furnished  by  a  certi- 
fied public  accountant.  Most  professional 
men  will  express  themselves  on  some  scien- 
tific point  without  being  familiar  with  the 
absolute  facts  in  the  case.  Incorrect  con- 
ception of  values  keeps  one  headed  toward 
the  rocks.  Water  is  necessary  to  satisfy 
your  thirst,  but  it  never  would  propel  a 
gasoline  motor  car.  Its  value  as  water  can- 
not be  questioned,  but  you  get  in  trouble 
when  you  give  it  an  undue  value  in  think- 
ing it  will  run  your  machine.  Inflated 


96  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

values  have  brought  on  most  of  the  world's 
financial  crises  and  they  cause  many  of  the 
personal  failures.  Habits  are  formed  on 
account  of  the  value  that  we  place  upon 
certain  things.  The  young  man  gets  a  taste 
of  champagne  suppers  and  bridge  parties. 
In  his  estimation  of  things  material,  they 
have  great  worth.  He  devotes  more  time 
to  them  than  he  can  spare  and  money  that 
is  not  his.  In  time  the  false  values  that  he 
placed  upon  these  things  bring  about  his 
failure  and  the  complete  shattering  of  his 
life.  Another  individual  underestimates 
the  value  of  honesty,  of  integrity,  of  truth ; 
he  holds  the  cardinal  factors  in  life  as  being 
of  no  value  and  he  disregards  their  tenets. 
In  time  his  reputation  is  gone;  he  has  vio- 
lated all  usages  of  ethics  and  is  a  moral 
bankrupt,  if  not  a  fugitive  from  outraged 
society.  You  cannot  climb  unless  you  cor- 
rectly judge  the  values  of  those  things  that 
constitute  the  warp  and  the  woof  of  a  sue- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  97 

cessful  life.  You  may  run  on  the  dead  level 
of  life  and  get  by  with  a  false  conception 
of  values,  but  just  as  soon  as  you  start  to 
make  the  grade  you  are  lost. 

The  pity  of  so  many  lives  is  that  so  much 
time  is  consumed  in  arriving  at  a  concep- 
tion of  what  is  true  and  what  is  false.  The 
fires  of  youth  burn  hotly.  It  is  hard  to 
keep  them  in  bounds.  Pleasures  lure  and 
charm  and  hide  the  pitfalls.  Values  are 
over-  and  underestimated,  and  it  is  hard  to 
separate  the  false  from  the  true,  but  when 
values  are  once  well  established,  then  the 
road  straightens  out  and  the  upward  climb 
becomes  easier. 


CHAPTER  XII 

HONESTY  OF  PURPOSE 

TT  ONESTY  is  an  effort  to  know  the 
•*•  truth,  to  avoid  error.  There  are 
fixed  and  definite  principles  of  ethics  that 
must  be  followed  to  win.  A  house  erected 
without  proper  regard  being  given  to  the 
rules  governing  balance  and  resistance 
will  fall  to  the  ground.  A  machine  that 
is  constructed  without  due  consideration 
being  paid  to  the  laws  governing 
mechanics  will  not  do  the  work  intended 
for  it  by  its  designer;  and  a  life  that  is 
built  without  due  consideration  being 
paid  to  the  fixed  and  immutable  laws  of 
truth  and  honesty  will  fail.  You  cannot 
slough  your  human  machine  in  the  making 
and  then  expect  it  to  stand  up  under  the 
grilling  test  in  life's  endurance  race.  You 
must  build  four  square,  you  must  give  serv- 
ice plus. 

98 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  99 

An  artist  paints  a  picture  and  weaves 
into  its  colors  his  very  soul.  It  takes 
months  and  years  to  complete  it,  but  it  is 
true  and  tells  an  honest  story  and  this  pic- 
ture lives  for  all  time.  Another  painter 
makes  a  daub,  sells  it  for  a  trifle,  and  this 
soon  finds  a  resting  place  on  some  forgot- 
ten wall. 

The  pyramids  and  obelisks  of  Egypt  have 
withstood  the  decaying  power  of  time  for 
centuries.  Their  builders  and  the  race  to 
which  the  builders  belonged  have  long  since 
crumbled  into  dust  and  today  are  known 
only  through  the  pages  of  sacred  history, 
but  their  handiwork  remains  because  it  was 
honestly  done.  Business  physicians  have 
tried  to  work  out  a  list  of  mortality  sta- 
tistics. They  do  postmortems  by  the  thou- 
sands and  then  publish  their  findings  to  the 
world,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  back  of  all 
the  gruesome  facts  they  bring  to  light  is  a 
reason  that  transcends  all. 


100  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

Modern  civilization  means  an  artificial 
life,  and  artificialness  means  sham,  and 
sham  is  dishonesty.  Into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  most  men's  lives  there  creeps  some- 
thing that  is  not  just  square,  that  does  not 
ring  just  true.  You  do  not  have  to  be  a 
deadbeat  to  be  dishonest,  you  can  cut  the 
corners  in  your  business  life  in  a  thousand 
ways  and  not  violate  a  statutory  law,  but 
every  time  you  cut  a  corner  and  shade  your 
fellow  man  in  a  transaction,  you  violate  one 
of  the  laws  of  success  and  you  pay  the  price 
thereby. 

Service  plus  is  the  rule  of  the  game  if 
you  would  win.  That  employee  who  filches 
an  hour 's  time  is  doing  the  greatest  injury 
to  himself.  That  employer  who  tries  to 
add  an  extra  dividend  to  his  earnings  by 
wringing  it  from  the  lives  of  his  employees 
is  hurting  no  one  so  much  as  himself.  He 
may  add  to  his  bank  account,  but  he  loses 
in  fineness  and  character  those  things  that 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  101 

soar  in  value  far  above  the  worth  of  gold. 
A  high  sense  of  honor  must  be  cultivated. 
One  must  not  lose  sight  of  his  animal  an- 
cestry and  the  primitive  rule  of  tooth  and 
claw.  Ethics  is  the  result  of  reason's 
rule  and  transcends  brutal  force.  Forget 
this  principle,  blot  out  this  light,  and  civil- 
ization is  nothing  but  a  veneer,  is  nothing 
but  a  pawn  with  which  the  brutally  strong 
can  play  at  will. 

Honesty  protects  the  weak  against  ag- 
gression, it  sub-dues  the  animal  instincts,  it 
respects  human  right  irrespective  of 
whether  those  rights  are  backed  up  with 
bustling  bayonets  and  big  guns.  It  is  the 
cordon  of  defense  thrown  about  the  weak. 
It  is  more  than  a  scrap  of  paper.  The  train- 
ing for  honesty  in  life  is  like  the  making  of 
a  superb  machine.  You  must  build  care- 
fully and  in  harmony  with  truth.  The  more 
care  and  attention  you  give  to  it,  the  finer 
the  product. 


102  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

There  is  not  enough  emphasis  given  in 
our  schools  to  ethics.  There  is  not  enough 
attention  paid  to  it  in  our  homes.  Honor 
should  be  impressed  upon  the  life  of  a  child 
from  its  babyhood,  not  fear  but  honor,  and 
an  example  of  honor  should  be  set  before 
it  and  an  atmosphere  of  honor  should  sur- 
round it  in  the  home.  How  can  you  expect 
a  boy  to  be  four  square  with  the  world  when 
he  sees  his  father  and  mother  do  unclean 
things  in  their  contact  with  their  fellow 
men  1  And  let  it  be  said  here  that  childish 
minds  are  quick  to  grasp  the  false,  much 
quicker  than  they  are  given  credit  for  being 
able  to  do,  and  they  do  not  forget.  An  im- 
pression made  on  a  child  mind  lives  for  all 
eternity.  Like  stain  upon  the  snow,  it  re- 
mains until  life  melts  and  fades  away. 
Many  a  vicious  life  is  started  from  impres- 
sions made  in  childhood  and  many  a 
wrecked  machine  is  due  entirely  to  poor 
workmanship  in  the  making.  You  cannot 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  103 

build  false  and  run  a  winner's  race.  The 
great  laboratory  of  the  human  soul  tests 
all  things,  and  by  these  tests  one  stands  or 
falls. 

Nature  sets  a  good  example.  She  always 
rings  true,  and  what  man  gives  to  Nature, 
she  in  turn  gives  back  to  him.  Give  the 
world  loyal,  loving,  worth-while,  square 
and  honest  service  and  you  will  be  re- 
warded in  proportion  to  what  you  give. 

Jesus  gave  utterance  to  a  basic  truth 
when  he  said,  "Give,  and  it  shall  be  given 
unto  you,"  but  let  us  understand  that  this 
must  apply  to  the  broad  principles  of  life 
and  not  to  some  sickly  sentimentalist's  plea 
for  aid  to  some  pet  cause.  Give  the  world 
the  best  you  have  in  an  honest  effort  to 
serve  your  work,  your  family,  and  civiliza- 
tion; and  the  world  will  give  back  to  you 
in  kind. 

If  you  pour  muddy  water  into  a  pitcher, 
you  will  pour  muddy  water  out  again. 


104  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

Slight  and  you  will  be  slighted.    Give  and 
you  will  be  given  unto. 

Life  is  not  a  thing  of  chance.  Success  or 
failure  is  not  accidental.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  luck.  Mankind  was  cursed  when 
this  word  was  born.  Its  false  hopes  have 
lulled  men  and  women  into  an  unconscious 
security  or  into  a  hopeless  condition  for 
ages.  "What  is  the  use,  my  luck  is  against 
me,"  has  been  the  nightshade  grasped  in 
many  bruised  and  bleeding  hands  as  the 
hopeless  one  expired.  "My  luck  will  pro- 
tect me ' '  has  been  the  insane  cry  of  many  a 
reckless  voyager  as  he  drifted  on  toward 
the  Cyclopean  rocks.  There  is  no  mystery 
in  success.  The  road  to  achievement  is  well 
charted.  It  has  been  trodden  by  countless 
feet,  but  it  is  straight  and  narrow  and  per- 
mits of  no  short  cuts.  Build  every  day  like 
the  Egyptians  built  their  pyramids ;  cut  and 
polish  every  stone.  Eun  square  with  the 
world  and  you  will  have  no  complaints  to 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  105 

make.  Give  your  best  to  the  world  and  the 
world  will  give  back  her  best  to  you.  Pour 
clear  water  into  your  pitcher  of  life  and  the 
pitcher  will  return  clear  water  to  you. 
Build  honestly  and  your  machine  will  run 
true  to  form  and  will  carry  you  up  and 
safely  over  the  grade. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PLEASURES 

'T^HERE  are  flowers  in  the  gardens,  as 
•••  well  as  grain  upon  the  hills.  There  is 
an  esthetic  life,  as  well  as  a  material  one. 
The  proper  mixture  of  the  two  makes  for  a 
well-ordered,  successful  existence.  Pleas- 
ures well  chosen  and  properly  assimilated 
help  materially  in  the  onward  climb.  It 
can  be  well  said  that  blessed  is  he  who 
finds  his  pleasure  in  that  which  does  not 
harm. 

I  trust  that  I  may  be  pardoned  for  again 
referring  to  values,  but  the  subject  of  pleas- 
ures in  life  is  so  akin  to  that  of  values  that 
it  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  impossible  to  dis- 
cuss one  without  referring  to  the  other.  It 
can  well  be  said  that  the  value  placed  upon 
pleasures  is  entirely  relative.  The  artist 
revels  in  a  winter  sunset,  a  soft  and  shaded 

106 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  107 

twilight,  and  a  harvest  moon  hanging  re- 
splendent in  a  midnight  sky.  To  the  stolid 
brain  of  the  peasant,  no  pleasures  can  be 
seen  in  any  of  these  things;  but  to  such  a 
mug  of  ale  served  by  a  rough-armed  bar 
maid  is  considered  to  be  one  of  earth's 
choicest  blessings.  A  game  of  golf  is  a 
great  pleasure  to  one  tired,  brain-fagged 
business  man;  to  another  there  is  no  value 
in  the  noble  Scottish  pastime,  but  a  game 
of  domino  or  checkers  is  a  great  treat. 
Comparisons  in  this  way  might  be  indefi- 
nitely prolonged  to  show  the  impossibilities 
of  standardizing  the  values  of  pleasures. 
But  enjoying  pleasures  in  life  is  a  great 
help  in  making  the  grades.  The  wise 
manufacturer  knows  that  he  cannot  drive 
his  machinery  day  and  night;  he  must  give 
it  an  occasional  rest.  Molecules,  inanimate 
though  they  be,  will  disintegrate,  fall  apart, 
and  break  down  unless  given  rest.  So  it  is 
with  the  human  machine.  Ceaseless  driv- 


108  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

ing,  constant  application,  continuous  use  of 
the  motor  and  your  organization  breaks 
down  under  its  own  strain. 

Diversion  then  in  the  form  of  pleasures 
becomes  of  great  value  in  making  the 
grade.  One  of  the  fine  arts  of  living  con- 
sists of  being  able  to  get  the  maximum 
pleasure  out  of  your  climb  and  still  con- 
tinue to  drive  ahead. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  live,  love,  and  work, 
and  one  should  be  an  incentive  to  the  other. 
Under  natural  conditions  this  would  be 
true,  but  civilization  means  living  under 
artificial  conditions.  The  higher  the  civili- 
zation, the  more  artificial  it  is.  Mountain 
climbers  strive  to  attain  some  far-away 
commanding  peak,  because  it  gives  them 
vantage  ground  from  which  to  survey  the 
surrounding  landscape.  They  get  genuine 
pleasure  out  of  being  able  to  view  the  val- 
leys, the  rivers,  and  the  less  commanding 
points  from  their  eminence.  The  pleasure 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  109 

they  derive  from  this  outweighs  the  toil 
and  the  effort  necessary  to  make  them 
climb.  Pleasure  was  the  drive  that  urged 
the  Alpine  climber  over  fields  of  snow  and 
ice,  up  and  still  up  and  on,  and  so  the  pleas- 
ures of  making  the  grade  grow  apace  as  the 
journey  continues.  One  rests  on  an  emi- 
nence today,  enjoys  the  flowers,  the  fruits 
and  the  scenery,  and  waves  back  at  his  fel- 
low climbers,  then  he  turns  his  face  reso- 
lutely to  the  fore  and  makes  for  the  next 
commanding  ridge.  Pleasure  in  accom- 
plishment, that  was  the  urge  that  drove 
him  on.  The  failures,  the  eighty-five  per 
cent,  cannot  get  in  tune  with  enjoyment  of 
this  kind.  Material,  animal  enjoyment 
constitutes  their  pleasure.  To  one  of  this 
type  there  is  no  beauty  in  the  orchid,  but 
the  cabbage  carries  to  him  a  great  happi- 
ness. There  is  no  harmony  in  a  symphony 
to  him,  but  ragtime  has  an  indescribable 
charm.  But  the  keen  pleasure  that  achieve- 


110  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

ment  brings  is  one  of  the  factors  that  makes 
for  success. 

You  cannot  win  unless  you  feel  that  you 
would  rather  have  success  than  anything 
else  in  the  world.  A  thoroughbred  racer 
runs  because  he  loves  to  run,  but  you  have 
to  ride  a  selling-plater  with  whip  and  spur. 
You  cannot  drive  a  man  or  woman  up  the 
hill.  You  may  push  or  pull  them  up,  but 
unless  they  want  to  go  and  want  to  go  so 
badly  that  it  hurts  to  be  anywhere  else  ex- 
cept in  the  race  trying,  there  is  not  much 
hope  for  such  an  individual  being  num- 
bered among  the  hill  climbers.  The  pleas- 
ure in  achieving  is  the  urge  that  drives  men 
on.  The  captain  of  industry  and  finance 
does  not  work  solely  because  he  wants  to 
pile  up  money;  money  is  his  least  concern; 
but  he  keeps  on  because  he  loves  the  game 
and  enjoys  the  ride.  Nothing  is  more  piti- 
ful than  the  man  whose  sole  idea  of  success 
is  the  accumulation  of  money  and  whose 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  111 

eyes  never  get  above  the  dollar  mark.  The 
truly  successful  man  thinks  secondarily  of 
money.  He  first  wins  on  account  of  his  love 
for  the  game,  then  money  comes ;  but  that 
individual  who  thinks  solely  of  money, 
never  gets  it  and  never  experiences  any  of 
the  .great  thrills  that  success  brings. 

To, select  and  enjoy  pleasures  that  help 
in  the  climb  is  a  fine  art  and  comes  with 
training  and  a  broad  understanding  of  life. 
It  takes  the  inventor  a  long  time  to  make 
his  models,  try  them  out  and  perfect  a  ma- 
chine that  will  serve.  It  is  the  same  with 
life.  It  takes  knowledge  of  the  game,  ac- 
quaintanceship with  its  many  sides  and  a 
perfect  understanding  of  the  lights  and 
shadows  before  one  is  capable  of  standing 
the  strain  that  comes  in  the  continuous  up- 
ward climb. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

KNOWLEDGE 

*  *  A  ND  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the 
^~^  truth  shall  make  you  free"  bears 
the  vintage  of  an  utterance  made  when 
civilization  was  young;  and  knowledge  is 
truth.  When  you  become  really  educated, 
the  fetters  fall  away  and  you  are  free. 
Knowledge  means  more  than  being  able  to 
sign  A.M.,  A.B.,  or  LL.D.,  after  your  name. 
It  means  knowing  life  in  all  its  varied  rami- 
fications, under  its  different  and  many- 
colored  settings;  it  means  an  understand- 
ing of  the  great  cosmos,  a  correct  interpre- 
tation of  Nature's  way  and  Nature's  laws; 
it  means  that  you  must  know  and  under- 
stand the  cry  of  the  weak  and  the  feeble 
and  harken  unto  that  cry,  that  you  be 
familiar  with  the  ways  of  the  strong  and 
detect  the  hidden  weakness  in  their  sup- 
112 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  113 

posed  strength.  To  know  is  the  privilege 
of  all,  is  within  the  reach  of  all,  and  will 
bless  and  benefit  all.  Knowledge  is  not 
relative,  it  is  exact.  When  you  know,  you 
are  free.  When  you  bow  to  the  unknow- 
able, when  you  recognize  anything  as 
mysterious  except  space  and  time,  then 
truly  you  are  bound  in  the  shackles  of  igno- 
rance. You  must  know  to  win.  Ignorance 
is  no  excuse  before  the  law,  and  Nature's 
law  knows  no  pity.  In  the  race  of  life  you 
either  win  or  lose.  Man  may  pity  the  fail- 
ure, but  Nature  never  does.  When  you  fail, 
you  fail  and  success  never  condones  a  mis- 
take. Knowledge  cannot  be  laid  hold  of 
easily,  but  once  it  comes  into  your  posses- 
sion, it  remains  for  life.  Men  live  by  truth, 
by  error  they  die.  Man's  only  hope  lies  in 
knowing,  knowing  the  laws,  not  man's  laws 
because  they  are  artificial,  but  in  knowing 
the  great  laws  of  life.  When  you  climb  you 
do  so  because  you  work  in  harmony  with 


114  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

laws.  When  you  fall  you  do  so  because  you 
transgress  laws.  To  be  educated  is  to  know 
life  and  to  obey  law.  Crime  of  every  de- 
scription is  the  result  of  ignorance.  Man 
would  not  be  so  foolish  as  to  bring  the  suf- 
fering upon  himself  that  follows  the  viola- 
tion of  law  if  he  only  knew. 

Every  man  and  woman  wants  to  win. 
They  start  in  life  with  high  hopes  and  great 
expectations.  They  plan  a  brilliant  future 
for  themselves  and  then  they  fail;  but 
when  you  analyze  these  lives,  why  should 
they  not  fail?  They  followed  the  direct 
path  that  leads  to  failure,  they  were  simply 
mistaken  in  their  direction.  You  cannot 
reach  Chicago  by  traveling  south  from  St. 
Louis,  but  Chicago  remains  in  its  identical 
location  and  would  be  glad  to  welcome  you ; 
but  if  you  travel  in  an  opposite  direction  all 
the  time  you,  and  you  only,  can  be  blamed 
for  not  arriving  at  your  destination.  And 
so  it  is  with  life.  You  want  to  reach  the 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  115 

harbor  of  success;  you  deserve  to  reach  it, 
but  if  you  travel  in  the  opposite  direction, 
success  is  not  to  blame.  Knowledge,  real 
knowledge,  keeps  you  from  taking  the 
wrong  road ;  but  you  must  have  knowledge, 
the  real  kind,  not  the  kind  that  says  this 
or  that  is  true  because  it  is  written  in  a 
book  or  spoken  by  someone  else,  but  you 
must  know  the  law  that  makes  for  truth. 
Knowledge  can  be  obtained.  It  has  never 
failed  to  open  wide  its  doors  to  all  who 
knocked  loud  and  long;  but  faint-hearted, 
timorous  requests  never  gained  admittance 
to  the  Temple  of  Truth.  It  is  impossible  to 
monopolize  knowledge.  It  cannot  be  cor- 
nered. There  is  an  abundance  with  which 
to  supply  all  the  demands  of  those  who  are 
willing  to  pay  the  price^  It  is  the  only  com- 
modity in  the  world  that  does  not  cheapen 
on  account  of  its  supply.  It  is  just  as  ex- 
pensive today  as  it  was  when  man  first 
fought  his  way  up  through  the  silent  ages 


116  MAKING    THE    GKADE 

of  cell  development;  and  it  will  be  just  as 
expensive  a  million  years  hence  as  it  is  to- 
day. You  cannot  cheapen  knowledge. 
There  is  one  price  put  upon  it  to  all.  It  is 
worth  the  same  to  all  and  it  serves  all  ex- 
actly alike.  Knowledge  rules,  youth  fails 
because  it  does  not  know  the  law,  old  age 
totters  on  to  ruin  because  it  does  not  kno\v 
the  law;  but  give  one  the  light  of  truth, 
either  in  youth,  middle  life,  or  old  age,  and 
then  success  is  his. 

Jacob  wrestled  with  the  angel  until  he 
received  the  blessing.  Thus  man  must 
wrestle  with  the  Angel  of  Truth  until  he 
gets  the  blessing  that  it  can  give  to  him. 
It  is  much  easier  to  live  in  error.  The  fatal 
eighty-five  per  cent  can  attest  to  that  fact. 
It  is  easier  to  "let  George  do  it"  than  to  do 
it  yourself.  It  is  easier  to  float  down 
stream  than  to  paddle  against  the  current. 
It  is  easier  to  accept  as  true  the  statement 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  117 

made  by  someone  else  than  to  dig  into  a 
problem  of  life  and  solve  it  for  yourself. 
Knowledge  is  life.  You  must  know,  or 
short  indeed  will  be  your  race  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave.  Where  knowledge  is 
there  liberty  abounds.  Ignorance  means 
servility.  Eulers  in  Continental  .Europe 
have  enjoyed  the  divine  right  of  kings  be- 
cause their  vassals  did  not  know.  Wher- 
ever you  educate,  freedom  is  born.  There 
is  a  difference  between  an  education  and 
knowledge.  A  college  youth  may  be  edu- 
cated and  know  less  than  a  Eussian  peasant 
about  life  and  its  great  truths.  For  this 
reason  schools  can  be  justly  blamed  for  a 
part  they  play  in  the  failures  of  life. 
Graduate  boys  or  girls  from  the  average 
high  school,  turn  them  out  in  life  to  make 
their  way  and  ninety  per  cent  of  them  will 
go  on  the  rocks.  They  must  be  re-educated 
before  they  are  of  any  value  to  the  world 
or  to  themselves.  This  loss  of  time  is  a  big 


118  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

factor  in  a  human  life.  The  period  from 
the  age  of  twelve  to  twenty  looms  big  in 
life's  brief  span.  It  can  be  made  the 
spawning  time  for  ideas  and  become  rich 
in  a  creative  way.  In  school  one  should  be 
taught  life's  problems.  Culture  has  its 
place  in  the  world  and  so  has  practicability. 
No  doubt  one  of  the  great  reasons  for  the 
success  of  the  poor  and  the  orphaned  is  be- 
cause boys  of  this  class  learn  life  and  learn 
it  young.  They  get  off  to  a  running  start 
and  when  they  hit  the  grade,  they  have 
been  trained  for  hill  climbing  and  the  steep 
and  rugged  ascent  presents  no  unusual  dif- 
ficulties to  them. 

Knowledge  of  life  enables  one  to  detect 
shams,  hypocrisy,  deceit  and  weakness  of 
all  kinds ;  and  when  one  is  familiar  with  the 
weakness  of  his  opponent,  it  gives  to  him 
added  strength.  Knowledge  is  the  last  lap 
in  the  race.  When  you  reach  this  period 
the  victory  is  won.  When  thus  equipped, 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  119 

you  know  the  value  of  industry,  of  honesty, 
of  patience,  you  are  familiar  with  all  that 
health,  self-confidence,  optimism,  and  val- 
ues mean.  You  have  come  to  the  point 
where  you  are  perfectly  capable  of 
strengthening  any  of  the  weak  spots  in 
your  armamentarium ;  your  motor  has  been 
tested  and  found  to  be  staunch  and  true; 
the  fallacies  have  been  winnowed  from  the 
facts  and  the  false  separated  from  the  true. 
Through  wisdom's  vision  the  crooked  paths 
are  made  straight,  and  you  no  longer  stag- 
ger in  the  dark.  Knowledge  crowns  all 
achievement.  It  is  the  great  hope  and  the 
blessing  to  mankind. 


CHAPTER  XV 

INDUSTRY 

"PRIMITIVE  man  was  lazy;  inheritance 
•*•  and  environment  made  him  so.  His 
wants  were  restricted  to  food  and  raiment 
and  these  were  of  the  simplest  character. 
With  the  development  of  civilization  wants 
and  needs  multiplied,  but  our  cell  life  of  to- 
day has  not  escaped  the  impress  made  upon 
it  by  inheritance,  and  it  requires  an  effort 
to  throw  off  the  desire  to  loiter  by  the  way. 
Only  by  training  can  habits  of  industry  be 
formed.  Mental  development  marks  the 
progress  of  civilization  and  civilization 
means  the  subjugation  of  the  brute  and  ani- 
mal instincts. 

Progress  in  the  arts,  in  science,  and  in 
economics  has  come  about  because  man  has 
applied  his  brains  and  his  brawn  to  the 
mastery  of  these  problems.  His  instincts 

120 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  121 

would  have  kept  him  still  wearing  animal 
skins  instead  of  a  dress  suit  and  would 
have  had  him  content  with  the  music  from 
a  tom-tom  instead  of  Mendelssohn  strains; 
but  the  love  call,  the  libido,  proved  to  be 
stronger  than  primitive  laziness,  and  man 
began  to  work  and  then  to  conquer. 

Undoubtedly  the  warp  and  woof  of  life 
is  made  up  of  love,  work,  and  play;  with 
the  proper  intermingling  of  these  ingredi- 
ents you  have  a  formula  that  brings  success. 
A  life  that  is  lacking  in  either  cannot  be- 
come the  full,  well-rounded  existence  that  it 
should.  You  must  love  to  work.  No  great 
human  achievement  has  ever  been  attained 
except  through  this  urge.  Eons  ago  it  was 
this  drive  that  made  the  male  go  forth  and 
slay  with  tooth  and  claw  and  bring  his  kill 
to  the  cave  that  his  mate  and  her  little  ones 
might  eat  and  live.  It  is  the  same  today. 
Mansions  are  built  in  gratification  of  the 
love  instincts,  mountains  are  tunneled,  rail- 


122  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

roads  are  built,  the  air  has  been  conquered, 
the  lightning  put  in  chains  because  men 
loved.  The  world  is  rocked  by  the  greatest 
of  all  wars  because  men  love  their  coun- 
try and  for  this  love  they  are  shedding 
their  blood  with  reckless  abandon.  Go 
through  the  marts  of  trade  and  commerce, 
go  to  the  halls  of  science,  of  art,  and  of 
literature, — everything  that  has  endured 
has  been  wrought  because  men  have  loved 
and  labored.  The  one  is  the  handmaiden 
to  the  other.  When  you  work  from  fear, 
fear  of  hunger  and  bodily  discomfort,  you 
are  harking  back  to  your  animal  ancestry; 
you  have  crushed  from  your  life  all  there  is 
in  it  except  your  primitive  instincts;  you 
have  prostituted  the  dignity  of  labor  and 
robbed  yourself  of  the  vital  spark.  Work 
without  art  is  brutality.  If  you  do  not  love 
your  work  you  are  leading  yourself  to  the 
shambles  and  failure  has  marked  you  for 
its  own. 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  123 

A  brute  builds  a  hut,  a  lover  a  palace. 
Kunners  formerly  carried  to  and  fro  all 
messages,  first  men  on  foot,  then  men  on 
horseback ;  but  today  we  touch  a  key  in  New 
York  and  almost  instantly  San  Francisco 
knows  what  is  happening  on  Fifth  Ave- 
nue. The  bank  of  England  or  of  France 
lowers  or  advances  its  rate  of  discount;  in 
one  hour,  or  less,  the  banks  on  Wall  and 
La  Salle  Streets  know  what  has  been  done. 
Love  brought  this  about,  love  and  work; 
but  love  for  work  and  the  lure  of  achieve- 
ment made  this  possible. 

The  world  is  at  war,  but  the  aeroplane  is 
the  eye  of  the  army  and  that  country  will 
win  that  has  the  most  eyes.  The  Wright 
brothers  are  responsible  for  this.  Their 
unconquerable  love  for  work  in  aeronautics 
brought  about  the  solution  of  aerial  navi- 
gation. America  built  the  Panama  Canal, 
but  not  until  the  public  health  official  and 
the  hygienist  through  love,  altruistic  love 


124  MAKING    THE    GRADE 

for  humanity,  solved  the  problem  of  yel- 
low fever  and  malaria.  Walter  Heed  so 
loved  medicine  and  the  people  it  served 
that  he  gave  his  own  body  for  experimenta- 
tion and  proved  by  personal  experience 
how  yellow  fever  was  transmitted.  He 
worked  for  love  and  he  gained  all  that  he 
lacked  in  life,  immortality.  The  money 
grubber  whose  eyes  have  never  been  lifted 
above  the  dollar  mark  may  not  count 
Keed's  life  a  success,  but  the  thirty  million 
souls  living  south  of  the  Mason  and  Dixon 
line  that  have  been  freed  from  the  yellow 
fever  scourge,  call  him  blessed,  and  science 
has  made  a  niche  for  him  high  up  in  her 
temple  of  fame. 

Industry  and  love  go  hand  in  hand  and 
their  union  has  made  all  conquests  possible. 
Work  without  love  is  slavery.  When  you 
drive  a  man  or  a  woman  with  a  lash,  you 
are  nothing  more  than  an  animal  trainer. 
The  successful  manufacturers  and  mer- 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  125 

chants,  men  of  large  affairs,  who  employ 
great  numbers  of  men,  have  won  because 
they  have  made  their  men  love  their  work, 
and  these  manufacturers  have  so  loved 
their  own  work  that  they  have  infused  this 
spirit  into  everyone  with  whom  they  are 
associated. 

Fear  never  begot  loyalty,  patience,  imag- 
ination, hope  or  courage;  but  love  fathers 
all  these.  Get  a  man  or  boy,  woman  or  girl, 
in  love  with  their  task  in  life,  and  you  have 
put  the  key  that  unlocks  all  doors  in  their 
hands;  but  put  hate  in  their  hearts  for  a 
task  of  any  kind,  and  you  have  forever 
bolted  the  door  against  them. 

That  individual  is  of  value  to  the  world 
who  creates  something  useful.  Upon  your 
handiwork  you  impress  your  character. 
The  well-executed  task  shows  the  master's 
touch.  The  men  who  have  made  the  grade 
are  the  men  who  have  worked  earnestly, 
loved  passionately,  and  played  hard.  They 


126  MAKING    THE  GRADE 

have  mixed  well  the  ingredients  of  success 
and  the  result  has  been  a  satisfaction  to 
them.  One  of  the  great  lessons  one  must 
learn  is  to  make  his  work  the  one  grand  pas- 
sion of  his  life. 

That  individual  who  starts  every  day 
with  keen  enjoyment  because  it  gives  an  op- 
portunity to  work,  is  -headed  straight  for 
Success  Land.  Nothing  daunts  this  type  of 
a  man.  Opposition,  hardships,  obstacles 
count  for  naught.  To  overcome  them  only 
makes  him  more  certain  of  the  goal.  But 
that  individual  who  works  at  a  task  be- 
cause it  gives  him  food  and  raiment  is  in 
a  sorry  plight.  He  is  a  slave  chained  to 
the  galley  wheel. 

Hope  begets  industry.  Destroy  this  in- 
centive and  you  put  man  upon  a  parity  with 
the  brute.  Increase  it  and  there  is  no 
limitation  to  his  achievement.  Well-di- 
rected, cheerful  labor  conquers.  It  for- 
ever remains  one  of  the  great  factors  in 
climbing  toward  the  goal. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CONCENTRATION 

~D  ESISTANCE  gives  way  to  superior 

•"•'  force  continuously  applied  upon  a 
given  point.  This  is  a  law  of  physics  and 
also  a  law  of  life. 

Concentrate  your  energy  and  you  burn  a 
way  through  opposition.  One  of  the  chief 
difficulties  in  life  consists  of  not  being  able 
to  concentrate.  Few  people  when  they 
work  throw  their  entire  energy  into  the 
task.  Go  into  a  store  or  a  factory  and  take 
note  of  the  employees.  You  will  find  most 
of  them  working  in  a  desultory  manner, 
doing  just  enough  to  keep  up  a  semblance 
of  being  busy  and  thereby  escape  a  repri- 
mand from  the  manager.  The  clock  is 
watched  assiduously  and  as  soon  as  clos- 
ing time  arrives,  nothing  can  keep  them  one 
minute  longer  than  is  necessary  to  put  their 
stocks  in  order  and  get  away.  Lack  of  con- 

127 


128  MAKING    THE  GRADE 

centration  is  one  of  the  great  contributing 
factors  among  those  who  cannot  make  the 
grade. 

Concentration  is  no  easy  task.  It  de- 
mands the  most  carefully  trained  will  and 
a  powerful  determination.  Thinking  must 
always  precede  the  act,  except,  of  course, 
involuntary  bodily  movement.  If  we  act 
with  concentration  we  must  think  in  the 
same  way  and  let  it  be  said  here  that  well- 
trained,  concentrated  thinking  comes  only 
after  much  effort  has  been  expended  upon 
it.  To  think  correctly  is  a  difficult  task.  If 
you  do  not  believe  it,  try  to  concentrate 
your  mind  on  a  given  object  for  five  min- 
utes; exclude  all  extraneous  matter  and 
think  upon  that  one  subject  continuously. 
Try  this  for  a  time  and  you  will  be 
astounded  at  the  magnitude  of  the  task. 
After  such  an  experience  as  this,  it  will  be- 
gin to  dawn  upon  you  what  little  effort  is 
really  expended  in  your  work.  Train  this 


MAKING    THE    GRADE  129 

way  for  thirty  minutes  a  day  and  you  will 
see  an  improvement  in  your  results;  it 
makes  no  difference  in  what  endeavor  you 
are  engaged;  and  above  all  else  you  will 
realize  what  little  time  and  effort  you  have 
been  really  giving  to  the  great  business  of 
succeeding  in  life. 

In  another  chapter  reference  was  made 
to  the  work  of  Carnegie  and  the  establish- 
ing of  free  libraries.  Sometimes  I  think 
that  most  of  us  read  too  much.  THINKING 
is  what  the  world  needs.  Eeference  li- 
braries are  all  right.  Know  what  your  con- 
temporaries are  doing,  but  above  all  else  do 
something  yourself,  think  for  yourself, 
dare  to  stand  alone  and  have  your  own 
ideas  about  things,  concentrate  all  your 
psychic  and  your  motor  powers  in  your  at- 
tack upon  the  forces  that  would  keep  you 
from  winning  and  they  will  be  put  to  flight. 

Men  who  win  the  big  victories  are  those 
who  concentrate  all  their  abilities  on  the 


130  MAKING   THE  GRADE 

task  in  hand.  Difficulties  melt  before  the 
disintegrating  power  of  concentrated  and 
well-directed  efforts.  If  boys  and  girls 
could  be  trained  to  think  correctly  and 
learn  the  power  of  concentration,  the  per- 
centage of  failures  would  materially  de- 
crease. Independent  thinking  results  eas- 
ily from  concentration;  and  independent 
thoughts  and  acts  are  the  great  need  of  the 
world.  Following  blindly  in  the  path 
others  have  made,  thinking  the  same  as 
others  have  done  brings  on  stagnation  and 
mental  death. 

Few  individuals  love  work.  Our  primal 
instincts  are  against  it  and  it  is  hard  work 
to  think  logically,  continuously  and  with 
concentration.  It  is  easier  to  envy  posses- 
sions of  others  than  to  gain  such  posses- 
sions ourselves.  It  is  easier  to  delude  our- 
selves with  false  hopes  than  to  get  out  and 
take  possession  of  opportunities  and  make 
our  own  impress  upon  the  world's  affairs, 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  131 

and  the  majority  of  men  like  to  do  the 
easier  thing. 

It  is  amusing  to  hear  men  and  women  talk 
about  the  divine  origin  of  man  and  claim 
kinship  with  a  deity  and  all  the  while  they 
exhibit  a  pronounced  animal  characteristic, 
that  of  aversion  to  real  work.  Few  people 
really  know  how  to  work  effectively.  To 
them  a  task  is  measured  by  the  number  of 
hours  it  takes  to  get  through  with  it  just 
any  old  way.  "Put  in  the  time,  get  what 
you  can  for  it  with  the  least  effort"  thus 
say  the  eighty-five  per  cent  who  think  they 
work,  but  all  the  time  they  have  an  eye  on 
the  clock  and  their  mind  is  far  away  gloat- 
ing over  some  withered  flowers  in  the  gar- 
den of  pleasures.  The  world  needs  mes- 
sengers that  will  find  Garcia,  and  men  and 
women  who  will  by  the  power  of  concentra- 
tion in  thought  and  deed  accomplish  things. 

Efficiency  is  a  popular  theme  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  Efficiency  experts  have  revealed 


132  MAKING   THE  GRADE 

a  waste  that  has  made  the  world  gasp.  They 
have  demonstrated  to  manufacturers,  to 
merchants,  to  bankers  and  professional  men 
that  only  about  twenty-five  per  cent  of 
labor  is  productive,  the  other  seventy-five 
per  cent  being  waste.  Think  of  it!  work 
one  hundred  days  on  what  could  have  been 
done  in  twenty -five !  Employ  one  hundred 
men  to  do  the  work  that  twenty-five  should 
be  able  to  accomplish !  Waste  everywhere, 
both  material  and  human!  Man's  power 
lies  in  his  brain.  If  he  does  not  use  this 
power,  then  it  is  of  no  service  to  him. 
Brain  power  to  be  effective  must  be  well  di- 
rected and  concentrated  upon  a  given  point. 
When  men  and  women  are  capable  of  doing 
this,  they  can  climb.  There  is  no  impass- 
able grade  to  them.  When  they  do  not 
concentrate  and  think  independently,  they 
are  on  the  dead  level  with  a  graveyard  not 
very  far  away. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
INITIATIVE 

TNITIATIVE  is  the  ability  to  think  for 
one 's  self  and  the  exercise  of  this  power, 
with  the  will  to  put  your  thoughts  into  exe- 
cution through  action.  The  human  ma- 
chine, like  a  material  one,  gets  out  of  order 
occasionally  and  needs  to  be  repaired. 
When  you  cannot  make  your  own  repairs 
and  keep  in  the  race,  you  are  carrying  a 
great  handicap  and  will  never  last  through 
a  sweepstakes  contest.  Most  of  your  time 
will  be  spent  laid  up  in  the  shop  waiting 
for  someone  else  to  put  you  back  into  the 
running. 

Initiative  enables  you  to  become  your 
own  mechanic.  It  keeps  you  in  the  run- 
ning all  the  time  when  the  other  fellow  is 
waiting  to  be  repaired,  waiting  his  turn  to 
get  assistance.  You  help  yourself  and 

133 


134  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

gain  a  lap  or  two  in  the  climb.  Individual 
thinking  makes  for  progress.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  fatalism.  Man  is  always  the  mas- 
ter of  his  destiny.  We  are  what  we  are 
by  our  own  acts  and  by  our  own  acts  we 
change  our  environment  and  our  condition 
in  life.  We  rise  or  fall,  win  or  lose,  over- 
come difficulties  or  succumb  to  them  just 
as  we  choose.  Human  environment  is  the 
result  of  human  thought  and  human  action. 
By  thought  and  action  we  change  it.  *  *  Will 
you  pay  the  price?"  is  the  eternal  ques- 
tion that  confronts  man  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave. 

Exercise  of  initiative  is  to  work,  to  think, 
and  to  act.  It  means  a  never-failing  spring 
of  hope,  of  courage,  of  optimism  and  of 
determination.  The  soldier  that  picked  up 
the  broken  sword  on  the  battlefield  when 
he  had  been  fighting  with  no  sword  at  all 
had  initiative.  The  primitive  man,  when 
he  first  realized  that  a  club  swung  with  the 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  135 

mighty  force  of  his  savage  arms  gave  him 
supremacy  over  his  brutal  opponent,  had 
initiative  and  the  development  of  this  has 
solved  all  the  problems  of  civilization  and 
will  continue  to  solve  all  of  them. 

No  ascent  is  too  steep  for  the  man  with 
initiative.  When  the  granite  cliffs  of  the 
Alps  barred  Napoleon's  advent  into  Italy, 
he  calmly  remarked,  "  There  shall  be  no 
Alps,"  and  proceeded  to  build  roads  over 
them.  Lincoln  said,  "I  will  study  and  pre- 
pare myself  and  some  day  my  chance  will 
come."  His  initiative  led  him  from  the 
cabin  in  the  Kentucky  woods  to  the  presi- 
dential chair  and  made  him  the  liberator 
of  a  race.  And  why  not  think;  when  you 
do  not  you  are  closely  akin  to  the  brute 
and  you  live  as  the  brute  lives — to  eat,  to 
sleep,  and  to  reproduce  your  kind.  But 
initiative  means  that  you  must  pay.  It 
means  not  the  path  of  primrose  dalliance, 
but  the  life  of  strife.  It  is  lamentable  but 


136  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

nonetheless  true,  that  few  individuals  real- 
ly think;  many  dream,  most  all  put  in  the 
time,  but  to  actually  think  out  a  problem 
in  all  its  ramifications,  to  familiarize  one's 
self  with  all  the  facts  connected  with  the 
task  in  hand  is  something  that  very  few  in- 
dividuals accomplish.  The  thinkers  and 
the  doers  are  the  path  finders,  the  trail 
makers,  the  hill  climbers.  Block  their  path 
today  and  tomorrow  you  will  find  that  they 
have  either  removed  the  obstacle  and  cast 
it  aside  or  else,  like  Napoleon,  they  have 
used  the  obstacle  as  he  used  the  rock- 
ribbed  mountain  barriers,  making  a  mac- 
adam road  to  the  object  that  he  sought. 

Matter  must  give  way  to  mind.  Thought 
has  always  conquered  the  material  and  it 
always  will.  The  philanthropist  aids  most 
when  he  starts  people  to  thinking.  To  dis- 
burse bounty  in  a  material  way  is  bad 
policy.  There  is  a  reason  for  poverty  just 
as  there  is  for  disease.  A  hospital  that  is 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  137 

maintained  for  the  mere  purpose  of  har- 
boring the  sick  would  be  a  curse  instead  of 
a  blessing.  Disease  must  be  prevented  as 
well  as  cured,  and  unless  you  remove  the 
cause  of  disease  you  are  not  accomplishing 
much.  To  relieve  poverty  and  not  remove 
its  cause  is  but  little  help,  in  fact  it  is  a 
positive  harm.  When  you  can  get  an  in- 
dividual to  thinking  you  set  his  feet  on 
firm  ground  and  put  him  in  a  position  to 
help  himself  and  you  must  think  or  you  are 
doomed. 

The  cell  instinct  makes  us  lazy.  The  evo- 
lution of  the  dress  suit  from  the  fig  leaf 
has  been  a  long  and  toilsome  journey  and 
there  are  still  more  leaves  than  Tuxedoes 
being  worn.  One  of  the  greatest  indict- 
ments that  the  Orthodox  church  must  bear 
is  its  stifling  of  independent  thinking.  Ig- 
norance and  hypocrisy  are  twins.  They 
are  both  spawn  from  the  same  cesspool 
and  they  both  stifle  and  enslave.  A  man 


138  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

or  a  woman  independent  in  thought  and 
in  deed  has  always  been  the  pioneer,  has 
always  blazed  the  trail.  But  why  so  few 
path  finders,  why  so  many  who  never  think 
one  thought  that  is  their  own?  Is  it  the 
fear  of  isolation?  Men  go  in  crowds,  like 
birds.  The  herd  instinct  keeps  them  to- 
gether that  they  may  be  preserved.  Just 
as  it  takes  a  well-built,  honestly-made  car 
to  stand  the  acid  test  of  the  mountain 
climb,  so  does  it  take  an  individual  with 
courage  and  endurance  to  think  independ- 
ently and  to  exercise  initiative.  When 
civilization  was  young,  men  and  women 
were  tortured  and  burned  at  the  stake  be- 
cause they  dared  to  break  away  from  estab- 
lished customs  in  thought  and  act.  While 
the  fagot  and  the  thumbscrew  have  passed 
into  oblivion,  the  independent  thinker  must 
still  run  the  psychologic  gauntlet  of  the 
world  and  unless  you  have  bravery,  pluck. 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  139 

optimism  and  courage,  your  new  ideas 
never  get  beyond  the  infantile  stage. 

Most  people  doze  mentally.  Their 
thoughts  run  in  a  groove  that  was  cut  for 
them  by  tradition.  Life  is  responsive  to 
stimuli.  A  battery  that  does  not  spark 
when  the  current  is  applied  will  never  carry 
a  car  up  and  over  the  grade.  Teachers  fall 
short  of  their  objectives  when  they  fail  to 
impress  upon  their  students  the  necessity 
of  thinking  for  themselves. 

It  is  better  to  try  and  fail  than  never  to 
try  at  all.  Individual  thinking  should  be 
encouraged  in  children.  Unfortunately, 
however,  just  the  opposite  is  the  case. 
Johnny  starts  out  on  his  round  of  explora- 
tion with  his  inquiring  mind  making  new 
discoveries  at  every  turn.  He  is  constantly 
admonished  not  to  do  this,  that,  or  the 
other  thing,  and  his  brain  is  kneaded  by 
negative  suggestions  like  a  bunch  of  dough. 
In  time  his  inquiring  mind  is  so  bruised 


140  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

and  beaten  by  the  psychic  shocks  that  it 
becomes  like  a  worn-out  battery  and  the 
stimulus  from  outside  sources  fails  to  pro- 
duce any  response.  These  dough  brains 
are  then  baked  in  the  world's  oven  and, 
like  pastry  forms,  are  displayed  in  the  shop 
windows  of  factories  and  counting  rooms. 
To  think  for  yourself  and  to  put  your 
thoughts  into  execution  means  progress. 
The  world  would  have  you  stick  to  the 
beaten  trail  because  the  world  dislikes 
change,  but  sameness  is  stagnation.  When 
you  dare  to  stand  out  from  the  crowd, 
when  you  have  the  courage  to  defy  tradi- 
tion, when  you  have  confidence  in  yourself, 
when  you  are  willing  to  pay,  when  you 
think  and  act  for  yourself,  then  you  are 
supplying  the  motive  power  that  moves  the 
world  and  this  power  is  the  great  factor 
that  helps  you  to  climb  to  the  top  and  make 
the  grade. 


CHAPTER  XVIH 
CONCLUSIONS 

TN  mathematics  one  must  prove  that  his 
deductions  and  conclusions  are  correct. 
Answers  to  problems  do  not  count  in  the 
realm  of  science  unless  they  bear  the 
searchlight  of  analysis.  In  life  it  is  just 
the  same.  How  to  achieve  success  is  the 
great  problem,  but  who  is  to  know  when 
success  is  attained? 

To  many  success  is  a  place  somewhere; 
like  a  material  heaven,  it  is  hard  to  locate 
by  direction.  There  is  one  thing  sure,  it 
is  neither  a  city  nor  a  country.  It  may  be 
a  harbor,  landlocked  and  free  from  storm ; 
but  never  has  a  material  ship  ridden  at 
anchor  upon  its  waves.  What  then  is  this 
prize;  where  is  this  much-sought-for 
place;  how  is  one  to  know  when  the  goal 
has  been  won ;  by  what  process  of  reason- 

141 


142  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

ing  can  one  prove  that  he  or  she  has  made 
the  grade  and  has  climbed  the  hill?  Why 
be  honest;  why  be  optimistic;  why  have 
health;  why  correctly  know  values;  why 
work,  ]augh  and  love?  It  would  seem  to 
me  that  a  correct  answer  to  all  these  ques- 
tions can  be  found  in  the  one  word — 
SERVING.  "Do  you  serve  your  fellow 
man!"  is  the  acid  test  to  be  applied  in  the 
soul's  laboratory.  By  this  analysis  you 
will  know  the  truth.  Men  achieve  success 
in  accordance  with  the  service  that  they 
render-  to  the  'world  and  to  civilization. 
Material  success  is  impossible  unless  you 
serve,  and  your  life  will  be  a  dismal  fail- 
ure unless  you  serve.  Florence  Nightin- 
gale, as  she  bended  to  her  task  of  nursing 
the  wounded  and  the  sick  on  the  battle- 
fields and  in  the  hovels,  was  climbing  the 
hill.  By  her  serving  she  made  the  grade. 
Today  the  great  profession  of  nursing 
with  its  white-robed  messengers,  number- 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  143 

ing  more  than  forty  thousand  in  America 
alone,  pays  tribute  to  her  memory,  and  ev- 
ery sufferer  on  the  blood-soaked  fields  of 
Europe  or  in  the  hospital  ward  anywhere 
in  all  the  world  blesses  and  reveres  her 
name,  and  that's  success. 

Walter  Reed,  when  he  lay  bare  his  arm 
to  the  sting  of  the  mosquito  in  order  that 
he  might  solve  the  mystery  concerning  the 
source  from  which  yellow  fever  came,  was 
serving,  and  today  the  Southland  and  the 
Tropics  honor  and  revere  his  name,  and 
that's  success. 

Thomas  Edison,  toiling  in  his  laboratory 
hour  after  hour,  oblivious  of  the  flight  of 
time,  so  anxious  is  he  to  wring  one  more 
secret  from  Nature's  womb,  is  serving; 
and  every  incandescent  light  that  mirrors 
back  to  the  world  the  sun's  rays  and  every 
strain  of  harmony  wafted  on  the  midnight 
air  from  the  phonograph  are  peans  of  vic- 
tory for  Edison,  and  that's  success. 


144  MAKING   THE    GRADE 

Marconi,  as  he  worked  and  dreamed, 
knew  the  air  could  be  made  into  a  beast  of 
burden  upon  whose  back  the  thoughts  of 
man  could  ride  at  will.  He  was  serving. 
Today  every  wireless  message  that  hums 
its  way  around  the  world  is  a  tribute  of 
praise  to  Marconi,  and  that's  success. 

Morse,  Field,  Lyden,  Watts,  Vanderbilt, 
Gould,  Ford,  Carnegie  and  those  countless 
thousands  who  have  climbed  to  the  pinna- 
cle of  human  achievement  have  done  so  be- 
cause they  served.  They  forgot  self  and 
in  their  efforts  to  render  service,  they 
achieved  success.  It  is  utterly  impossible 
to  succeed  and  to  achieve  in  life  unless  you 
serve,  and  in  your  willingness  to  render 
service  is  recorded  the  degree  of  success 
that  you  attain.  Civilization  progresses 
only  in  accordance  with  the  degree  of  serv- 
ice that  man  is  willing  to  render  to  his  fel- 
low man. 

To  accumulate  money  is  not  success ;  to 


MAKING   THE    GRADE  145 

do  that  is  simply  following  out  one  of 
man's  primal  instincts  of  storing  up  food 
for  a  rainy  day.  The  crow  and  the  squir- 
rels lay  up  nuts  in  the  summer  that  they 
may  live  when  winter  comes  with  its  snow 
and  ice.  There  is  more  to  life  than  the  ac- 
cumulation of  gold.  To  serve  your  fellow 
man,  to  advance  civilization,  to  add  some- 
thing to  the  sum  total  of  human  knowl- 
edge, to  leave  better  than  you  found,  that's 
success  and  that's  the  goal  to  win.  To  do 
this  you  must  climb  the  hills,  you  must 
know  the  truth  and  live  its  tenets.  For 
this  reason  it  is  necessary  that  you  have 
health,  that  you  be  an  optimist,  that  you 
have  patience,  that  you  know  values,  that 
you  have  confidence  in  your  undertakings, 
that  you  be  honest,  that  you  have  knowl- 
edge, that  you  be  able  to  concentrate,  and 
that  you  have  initiative.  Mix  well  these 
ingredients.  They  constitute  the  warp 
and  woof  of  life,  and  then  with  faith  and 
loyalty  serve, — that's  success. 


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DUE    AS   STAMPED   BELOW 

.vr-xri  -1  c\    1Q77  A    o 

JWOBC  MAY    6  1987 

APR  12  1J// 

APR  222  1988 

MMR  APROeHW 

DEC   fB77    L 

I 

^  rmr  :     *  '77 

I:  a*  CM-LLO 

AUG6    "1982 

KTB     MAR  1  1  191 

2 

OCT    1  1982 

f^TD    JUU* 

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